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From growing up in a household that valued health advocacy to committing his energies to ending the global aids pandemic, commander in chief’s anthony azizi brings a wealth of compassion and substance to television’s latest hiv-positive character
by B. Andrew Plant
Anthony Azizi bounds into the room for our interview, all smiles, introducing himself as if we weren’t all here to talk about him. And, though he is an actor, currently starring in ABC’s Commander in Chief, this exuberance is obviously no act. He proceeds to ask everyone how they are; he genuinely seems to want to make a connection with each person he meets. He maintains and, in fact, intensifies that tone throughout our time together.
As we begin talking about his character, Vince Taylor, from Commander, it’s quickly apparent Azizi is well-versed about HIV/AIDS. Indeed, he was all-too-familiar with the pandemic before ABC writers decided his character would come out—as both HIV-positive and gay. Just as clear is the fact that he embraces the challenge of portraying Vince Taylor and his work as personal aide to the nation’s first female President as progressive.
The show’s HIV/AIDS plotline developed as a political scandal: Adversaries of the President plan to “out” Vince, who has hidden his sexual orientation and HIV status from everyone in the Executive Office, including President Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis). While President Allen is personally supportive of and concerned about her aide, she is poised to be politically embarrassed by the fact that a top aide was lying to her…or having it seem she might have been complicit in hiding information about him.
“Mine is probably the first character of ethnicity to have HIV/AIDS on [major network] television,” Azizi says, “and also is probably the first character working in the White House to be portrayed with HIV. At least someone who works so closely with the President.” He adds that he has heard rumors the character is loosely based on someone from the Clinton White House who was HIV-positive.
“The whole issue of my character is that he has been living with AIDS and been paying for these expensive drugs [himself]…and has been able to survive and have a very constructive, productive life,” Azizi says. “Even though he has HIV—we have not portrayed him with [full-blown] AIDS—I want to demonstrate that he can make a difference with whatever he does in his life. Working here in government, alongside the President. He is gay, he is HIV…but these are just two aspects of who he is.”
His passion around the subject makes Azizi an easy interview: He has something to say about HIV/AIDS—and other topics—and appears deeply moved to share his heartfelt, inclusive views.
The actor—who was born in Iran (moving to the States with his family at the age of two)—says the role of Vince Taylor has expanded his AIDS awareness, but, again, he shares, “the several ways I’ve always dealt with and been around this issue.”
Azizi’s father was a pediatrician, and that helped to heighten the household’s awareness of health issues, including the emergence of HIV/AIDS. “My father was dealing with kids and teenagers and their health and encouraged us to talk about those things,” he says. “I am so glad we had a greater awareness of social-medical issues.”
Indeed, his father was a prominent pediatrician (who practiced near Philadelphia and in New York) who spoke out against child physical and sexual abuse and children’s rights. As his son tells it, the doctor was struck by the relative prevalence of such in American culture, having not seen much abuse in his own Middle Eastern culture and suspecting it was likely just not talked about or otherwise addressed. This made a great impression on Azizi.
After his father’s death, when the actor was a teenager, Azizi eventually shifted career ambitions from medicine to entertainment. Of course, his work in theater and other areas of entertainment meant he had an above-average exposure to people affected by and infected with HIV/AIDS. The sensitive man took this to heart. “Inevitably, when you work in the arts…you know a number of individuals who…,” Azizi says, tearing up and trailing off.
Ultimately, Azizi experienced AIDS caregiving firsthand. A woman he now refers to as “a cousin”—“because I grew up with the family and she was my long-time girlfriend”—had a cousin named Frank, who had AIDS. Azizi was close to him and was part of a cadre of friends and family who took care of Frank, enabling him to stay in his own home, for two years before he passed away.
And the AIDS lessons just kept coming. “My wife is half Zimbabwean,” he tells me. “Zimbabwe is now the most [AIDS-]ravaged country in Africa. Thirty-three percent of the population is HIV; that’s absurd.” He pauses, looks around the room at the five people present and says, “if we were in Zimbabwe right now, maybe two of us would have HIV or AIDS….” Again, his big expressive eyes are rimmed with tears. He goes on to say that, of course, his wife has lost friends and family to the pandemic.
Eventually, Azizi added the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation to a list of nonprofits he actively supports. “Part of the reason was everything I had seen of HIV and part of it was a duty I felt to my father’s legacy,” he says.
The actor has twice participated in the Foundation’s annual fundraising triathlon, and with self-deprecating wit tells the tale of his “almost drowning” in this past fall’s event. “I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been and started having problems breathing; it was rough ocean, and people on jet skis [lifeguards, essentially] kept coming up to me and saying, ‘are you okay?’ and ‘you can stop, we can take you in, be safe…,’ and I finally thought, ‘You’re doing this for the kids. Kids are dying of AIDS. Who the hell am I? I can finish this….’ And I did.”
He is proud of that accomplishment, and takes care to tell me a great many details about his trainer (for the event), tidbits about celeb-friends who have participated in Glaser Foundation events, and various other asides about his work, his passions and his hopes for humanity.
“What has changed for me with this role is that I am out there again and revisiting this thing…HIV…that is still so fiercely on the rise in so many parts of the world…and I have this way to help say something about it. A way to bring a very human, very ‘everyday’ look at a productive, atypical person with HIV into the homes of a lot of people,” Azizi says. These are not the words of a publicist; these are the words of a professional…who has the capacity to care and the ability to make a difference.
“This show [Commander] is such a good [venue] for the HIV storyline because HIV is very politically charged. People use it to political advantage rather than use it in the guise of human understanding and understanding that we all have AIDS [figuratively],” he says. “If we truly are world-encompassing in our vision as artists or in our lives—and I think we must be—we have to care about our brothers and sisters in Southeast Asia and Africa and all over the world who have HIV.”
The Vince Taylor character has even further depth because he is portrayed as being of Palestinian descent. Thus, there are very natural issues the show explores in terms of Vince’s very conservative Middle Eastern background. For instance, that cultural experience is cited among the reasons Vince has kept his sexuality and HIV status secret. And that’s another facet of the character Azizi feels is important and with which he can empathize.
“Even with the [prevalence] of HIV/AIDS now,” he says, “people still tend to make judgments around it. For one, people assume you got HIV/AIDS through homosexual contact…and then they judge you for who you are, what you are…instead of helping deal with HIV, on an individual basis and more [broadly].
“Even if you are religious and your belief system is that you don’t believe in certain things…you cannot differentiate between people and how they were infected,” he says, exasperated. “You have a responsibility as a spiritual person, whether you are a Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Bahá’í, whatever your background…to love. It’s the fundamental, overriding principle of any religion.
“I can’t reiterate enough that…your responsibility is to love, and that includes caring about and for all people,” says Azizi, who is Bahá’í. “Unfortunately in my own [Middle Eastern] culture [discrimination against those with AIDS] is the heaviest…whether it is because of religious austerity or whether it is because of the culture…if you are HIV you are shunned…it’s over for you….That’s bullshit!”
Azizi reflects on the fact that his character once did a monologue about being gay and HIV and how these things affect him in regards to his Middle Eastern background. He laments that the monologue was cut, and has hopes it may yet be used on future episodes. “It may have simply been cut for time considerations…we do a lot of great material you never see,” he says, “but I loved what that monologue demonstrated: It showed another kind of person than you are maybe used to seeing with HIV. These are the kinds of moments that show HIV is an equal opportunity disease.”
Such moments, Azizi says, help humanize HIV/AIDS and doing so is crucial, “when you’re trying to help people understand an issue. To move them to action, or at least compassion.” In making this point he references Brokeback Mountain, saying, “it’s not about two gay cowboys…it is about who they are and how they get to the place they are. It too is a humanizing story.”
He returns again and again to talk about caring for all people. And all people with HIV/AIDS. Anywhere and everywhere in the world. “Africa has been ravaged by HIV for many more years than it has been [popular] to talk about it,” Azizi says. “For whatever reason, there is now greater attention on it. Good! At last! But we need more!”
“The problem now is that most of the proliferation of HIV is happening in poor countries…and they cannot afford once they have HIV to manage the disease. The effective drugs are out of their reach. Out of their governments’ reach,” he says, seeming genuinely frustrated. “I don’t know what the answer is…but I will say this: We all know what is right and wrong. It’s not a question of being liberal or conservative or white or black or Chinese or gay…you know what’s right…when you hug someone and treat them with respect…and recognize their issues and challenges….”
He breaks off to talk about socioeconomic differences in HIV infection, in treatment access. About misconceptions regarding HIV disease, here and in other societies. And, he says, we must not forget that we still haven’t “knocked” HIV here at home. “It’s on the rise in this country again; there has been an eight percent increase in HIV cases being reported. That’s a pretty big jump…and one we have to stop.”
But back to Vince Taylor, the man, albeit fictional, who brought me together with Azizi. “I hope my character continues to grow with the show,” he says. “I don’t know what is going to happen going forward [on Commander], but my character has a boyfriend, and there are his Palestinian roots to explore further, and all through his other [character points] we can keep AIDS in
the picture.
“I think my character, by what he says and does…can make a difference not just specifically for people with HIV/AIDS, but make a difference for all human beings,” he says, “by humanizing many different aspects of who someone is and what they accomplish…and seeing what challenges they have.
“I got into this business to make a change. One of my dreams in becoming an actor was to make a difference, make a statement and part of that…is working through popular culture, because it is powerful in shaping how we see our world, to make people think about things and people we might not otherwise think about,” Azizi says.
“I want to say that AIDS has touched my life directly, in several different ways,” he says, “and that gives me a purpose and a duty. If for no other reason, I have family all over Africa, so if they need me in Africa, or wherever else to help [with the AIDS crisis], I’ll be there—or wherever…. Whatever way I can lend my help.”
Keep up with the many activities of Anthony Azizi at http://abc.go.com/primetime/
commanderinchief/summaries/overview.html.
B. Andrew Plant, an Atlanta-based freelance writer, is Editor at Large of A&U. He interviewed Suzanne Whang for the November 2005 issue.
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