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Octavia Spencer Eager to Create New Archetype for Black Actors

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Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer has played a maid in the ’60s, mother to a troubled Black teen and soon-to-be-aunt of singer James Brown.

In Spencer’s newest film “Paradise” she will play “something of a postmodern intellectual in the character of Loray, a woman comfortable in her own skin but not to be defined by it either.”

Spencer tells theGrio.com, “She is an educated hipster with a point of view, and we get to see that point of view played out on screen. It’s an archetype I definitely haven’t played.”

Spencer, who revealed her real friends are an eclectic bunch, believes the stereotypes of Black actors have defied reality to become the norm.

“I don’t think there is one way that black people are versus one way that Asians are, [etc.] I think it’s just how things are depicted that it becomes the norm.” She added, “I have the most eclectic, wackiest group of friends that there are, and that, I think, for the most part is most of the people I know. There’s just not one way of being.”

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