'Shameless' actor Christian Isaiah allowed to watch only his scenes due to show’s mature content, wants to play Black Panther or Iron Man
11-year-old Christian Isaiah, a television actor, rose to fame playing the role of Liam Gallagher on Showtime’s ‘Shameless’. Isaiah, recently speaking to MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), talked about many things, including how he isn’t actually allowed to watch his own show because of its adult content.
Isaiah, who will turn 12 in December, said he is only allowed to watch his clips on the show. "So they have to create like this reel thing so that I can only see my clips and stuff," he said. In fact, he wasn’t really given a background on the show as well, due to its mature content.
“That was definitely not happening,” said Isaiah, but added his experience working on the show was really good. “But everyone was like very cool. They greeted me really well and it was like really awesome.” Talking about his other cast members, Isaiah recalled how William H. Macy, who plays Frank Gallagher on ‘Shameless’, once gave him a “fart machine”.
He said, “So, we created a plan for like I don’t know how long, but it was a solid two weeks. We just talked about this. So he got a fart machine. It had these buttons that would change the noises. And it was the best. So, what we did was put it under the director’s chair. So, when they heard it, they thought it was the director. We did four takes and nobody realized it was us. And then we told Ethan Cutkosky and Emma Kenney (who play Carl and Debbie Gallagher) about it and they started laughing.”
Isaiah also plays a young version of ‘Black Panther’ actor Chadwick Boseman’s character, Andre, in ‘21 Bridges’, an action thriller film directed by Brian Kirk. “That was actually really fun,” said Isaiah. “I was watching ‘Black Panther’ before and I was watching it on the airplane and I was like, ‘Awesome, can’t wait to see this guy’.”
A ‘Black Panther’ fan, Isaiah said before meeting Boseman, he thought, “I wish I was on ‘Black Panther’, but I have got to meet him (Boseman).” Fanboying over Boseman further, he said, “He is like amazing in person. He is really tall. He’s really kind. He’s just amazing.”
Talking about what superhero role he would want to play, Isaiah said, "I would really love to be Black Panther, to be honest. But at the same time, I would want to be -- my second superhero would be Iron Man. Because I have been on so many TV shows where I have haven't been in a good financial part, I would love to have that rich background."
'21 Bridges' is scheduled to be released November 22 in the U.S. and Canada. 'Shameless' airs Sundays at 9 p.m. only on Showtime.