‘I suppose I was fortunate. Some of those children suffered terrible abuse, but I was adopted by a couple from California, Harry and Lisbeth Williams. They wanted only the best for me and I was brought up in a caring and supportive household in Pomona, to the east of Los Angeles. My adoptive father worked for a large casting agency in Hollywood and therein lies the answer to your question, Mr Hawthorne. Our table talk was often about feature films and actors and it was hardly surprising that before I was even in my teens, I should have decided to join the profession. In a way, my entire life was a performance. I was playing the part of the all-American boy, even though I experienced almost daily reminders that this was far from the case.’
‘You suffered racism?’
‘In high school, the other children made jokes about me being Lakota. They called me “Chief”。 They would make tomahawk gestures … that sort of thing. I had to get used to being stopped quite unnecessarily by the police and there was an occasion when I was accused, falsely, of shoplifting. Later on, when I started work as an actor, I found I was treading a thin line between being stereotyped and being excluded. How many Indigenous actors can you actually name? Only one has ever won an Academy Award.fn1 I’m not complaining! I consider myself in many ways to be very fortunate. But that is how it is.’
‘Have you ever gone back to Rosebud?’ I asked. ‘Did you find your birth parents?’
Jordan frowned. ‘No. My ethnicity has never been an issue for me. I’m very disconnected from my tribe. Jayne, my wife, was born in Huddersfield. I have two children with British passports. And in all this, I have had to consider the feelings of my adoptive parents. It may be that they felt a residue of guilt when they considered what they had done. When I was fifteen, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was designed to prevent any further adoptions such as mine – not, incidentally, that it succeeded. They never said as much, but I could tell that they were unhappy about my looking back, searching for my roots, as it were. They discouraged me from visiting the Rosebud Reservation. I have never been there. There are some who might criticise me for this, but I owe Harry and Lisbeth a great deal. Despite the distance between us, we are still very close. They’re elderly now … both in their late eighties. I have honoured them by trying to be what they want me to be, even if that is not entirely what I am.’
He stopped and turned back to the mirror, as if he was aware that he had been talking too much.
‘Did you find Mindgame easy to do?’ Hawthorne asked.
‘Acting is never easy, Mr Hawthorne. I always say that if it’s easy, something is very much amiss. It’s an act of self-sacrifice, pulling the character from inside you. It can be painful. But that is how it should be.’
‘I was thinking about the violence at the end of Act One. And in most of Act Two.’
‘It’s not real. You surely can’t believe that it in any way connects me with what happened to Harriet Throsby.’
‘People can be violent without knowing what they’re doing.’ Hawthorne paused. ‘For example, during rehearsals I understand you hurt Sky Palmer.’
‘Did she tell you that?’
‘It’s no secret.’
Of course, I was the one who’d told Hawthorne what I’d seen. Just for once, he’d been considerate enough not to name me.
Jordan drew in a breath and I saw his hand, which had been lying flat on the make-up table, curl into a fist. ‘I am not a violent person, Mr Hawthorne, despite what you may have heard. That business with the cake, for example. I was just letting off steam. I had just read an unpleasant review and I overreacted. I do that sometimes. But if you really think I was planning to kill her, do you think I would have announced it in front of the entire company?’
Hawthorne didn’t reply.
‘As for Sky, that happened at the end of a long and tiring day. I had things on my mind. I’ll admit that there are times when I don’t know my own strength. We were rehearsing the scene where Styler and I have to tie the nurse to a chair. I had done it many, many times on the road without any issues, but just for once I suppose I lost concentration. I gripped her too tightly and I left bruises on her arms. Of course, I was mortified. Sometimes, the role, the created truth, can consume the actor. Have you read Stanislavski? That’s what happened for just a few brief seconds.’
‘You’re lucky it wasn’t Julius Caesar. There’d have been blood everywhere.’