Chiswick Actor Tipped for Oscar for His Portrayal of Racist Cop

Will Poulter moves away from comedy in Kathryn Bigelow's 'Detroit'

Picture: MGM/Annapurna Pictures

A young Chiswick actor who made his name in comedic roles is now being said to have delivered his finest performance as a violent racist cop.

Will Poulter who learnt his trade at the School of Comedy at the Tabard Theatre is already being talked about as an Oscar nominee for his performance in Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Detroit’.

Will plays Philip Krauss a young policeman who is seen descending into appalling brutality during a race riot in 1967. The film depicts real events that took place in the Algiers Motel in which several black men and two white women were brutalised by three policemen and resulted in three deaths.

He said, ‘I was really excited at taking on the prospect of taking on the responsibility to expose a racist individual in the context of a film that has so much potential for impact social change.’

Initially, Will’s character appears to have a social conscience and talks of the way that the police are failing the black community but a fatal encounter with a looter and the possibility of a murder charge brings about a fundamental shift in his attitude.

The central and prolonged scene of the film is one in which Krauss with two accomplices subjects a group of detainees to sustained torture. He forces them to stand against a wall for hours and takes them one by one into a room initially pretending to kill them. His victims are beaten and degraded and in some cases actually killed.

Krauss is a representation of a real life police officer David Senak who was 23 at the time of the riots. He never served any time for his actions at the Algiers Motel and is still alive although the other two policemen involved have since died.

Will admits that he cried after completing some of the scenes because of the brutality he had to portray but his fellow actors have reported how he was always the first to ask them if they were okay after the completion of a traumatic take.

Picture: MGM/Annapurna Pictures

He has already appeared in straight roles in big budget Hollywood movies most notably The Revenant with Leonardo DiCaprio but comedy was where he made his start. He joined the School of Comedy in Chiswick in 2005 after being spotted by Laura Lawson who had just set up the school along with Tara Carr. Diagnosed as dyslexic and dyspraxic aged 8, drama soon became an outlet for Will. The original troupe, including Will, went to the Edinburgh Festival in 2007. This resulted in two hit series on Channel 4. He made his breakthrough in the US after being cast in We Are The Millers with Jennifer Aniston.

Detroit can be seen at local cinemas from this Saturday (12 August).

August 6, 2017