Blair Underwood is starring in a new movie with Julia Roberts called Full Frontal. It's a digitally photographied movie, and according to movie standards, this $8 million movie is low budget.

Underwood has been around Hollywood for many years. He is an abundantly talented actor who has not played the leading man in many movies although he is well-spoken and handsome.

In an interview last week, he said that African American males have not received casting as a romantic leading men--that is, in white directed films. This comment is an echo of actor and writer David Mura's concerning Asian males.

Mura, in How America Unsexes the Asian Male, makes the same observation as Blair about black male casting. He argues that Hollywood has oversexed Asian females, always pairing them with white males and virtually unsexed Asian males completely.

Blair does not go that far, but he does, in his mildly outspoken manner, state that the Black male has not received white casting as a major romantic leading man. While this is true, it is strange that the black male has not been under or unsexed as the Asian male has been. Instead black males have been over-sexed by white directors.

Whatever the case may be in the minds of white directors, it is because of mischaracterization of blacks and other reasons that there a rise of black directors who are willing to show a different picture of black males and females.

Blair is worthy of a leading man role; he has appeared in a number of movies and music videos. But the leading man romantic role is as illusive for most black actors as black brilliance is in most casting.

He is married to Desiree Underwood, anf they have a son, Paris, who was born 1997 and a daughter, Brielle, born 1999.

Blair Underwood attended Carnegie Mellon University. []
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