TONIGHT
E-mail a friendAlfre Woodard
original airdate March 21, 2005
Alfre Woodard is the most honored African American actress in Primetime Emmy history. Her TV credits include Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and the movie, Miss Evers Boys. The versatile actress' film credits include the new release, Beauty Shop, Star Trek: First Contact, Radio and Cross Creek, for which she received an Oscar nod. Woodard also lends her voice to a variety of TV documentaries. A dedicated activist, she taped 'get out the vote' PSAs for last fall's election and actively promotes human rights.
Alfre Woodard
Tavis: I am pleased to welcome the awfully talented Alfre Woodard to this program. The latest project for the four-time Emmy winner is the new Queen Latifah comedy 'Beauty Shop.' The film, which also stars Kevin Bacon, Alicia Silverstone, Djimon Hounsou--what kind of beauty shop is this?
Alfre Woodard: Oh, it's rockin'.
Tavis: Alicia Silverstone in the 'Beauty Shop.' It opens on March 30th. Here now a scene from 'Beauty Shop.'
Gina Norris: You look too sexy. You might wanna use some of that mud cloth and like kinda, you know, cover up the girl.
Miss Josephine: Does my sexiness offend you?
Gina: No, I'm just saying--
Miss Josephine: Does it come as a surprise, oh, Lord, that I dance like I got diamonds at the meetin' of my thighs.
Chanel: Oh, here we go, her and Miss Angeloo.
Miss Josephine: Angelou! Does my hunkiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'cause I laugh, ha, like I got gold mines digging in my own backyard. Whoo-hoo!
Tavis: Maya Angelou being quoted in the beauty shop. Hey, Alfre.
Woodard: Hi, Tavis.
Tavis: Nice to see you. Are you all right here?
Woodard: I'm great.
Tavis: What kind of beauty shop is this? First of all, we got somebody walking around quoting Maya Angelou.
Woodard: You know everything goes on in the beauty shop. It's the place where you can be yourself.
Tavis: But what is that about black folk and the beauty shop for sisters--obviously, barbershop for brothers--what is it about us and where we meet to get our hair done that is just like the centerpiece of everything?
Woodard: It's the gathering place. You know, we would be around the campfire centuries ago. We'd be down by the river, you know, several decades ago, washing, talking. It's the place that you come where the boss man's not bothering you. If you're the boss man, you don't have to boss anybody around. There's no children bothering you. There's no men needing something from you. It's that little oasis where you can sit. I drop by my salon when I'm going cross-town and I've got 10 extra minutes.
Tavis: Not even to get your hair did.
Woodard: No, I--
Tavis: Just to stop by.
Woodard: I stop by and I have a cappuccino.
Tavis:
Woodard: Oh, I play this woman, Miss Josephine, whom I just love. I have fashioned Miss Josephine as-- 'Beauty Shop' takes place in Atlanta, in the Swats, right? That's the 'hood in case people don't know it. And so Miss Josephine is from the country in Georgia, and she's moved up to Atlanta. She's a beautician. That's the big-time for her. She's one of these self-made, self-educated women. Don't you love country people who are unself-conscious? They take everything and make it theirs. And it's like, 'Maya Angelou, she talkin' about us.' She just loves to live it. Instead of quoting the Scriptures, she quotes Maya Angelou all the time.
Tavis: Tell me what it was like being on a set where there's so much comedy. I mean, you've done a variety of stuff in your career. But you are such a talented thespian, and we think, I think of you, I think of theater and I think of, you know, these elevated roles you have played. And here you are now just laughing it up in 'Beauty Shop.'
Woodard: Well, you know, one of the great things about being an actor is you can do it all. You don't get called on to do it all, all the time, but we can do it all, so it was really great to have fun. I had just gotten off 'Drowning Crow' in New York, which is a very serious play, a wonderful play by Regina Taylor that was kicked around by a lot of the less enlightened critics. So when the opportunity--
Tavis: That's a nice way to put that: 'less enlightened--' Y'all fools! Y'all just didn't get it! You call them 'less enlightened.' Very nice, Alfre.
Woodard: But when they said Latifah wants you to be in her movie, I said, 'Yeah.' I wanna go home and have some fun, so we did. We had a great time.
Tavis: Speaking of having fun, you and I have one thing in common. I grew up as part of a big family, large family, 10 kids in my family. But you have, like-- I have read and heard about how big your family-- It's like, where, Tulsa?
Woodard: In Tulsa.
Tavis: It started in Texas, though.
Woodard: Yes. Mom's family from Texas, father's family from Oklahoma. I have one brother and one sister. But my mother's family, there's 12 in that family, siblings. 12 in my father's family. Everybody went forth and multiplied. Of my generation, I'm the only one with just two children. They call themselves being enlightened just having four and five children. But my grandmother, there was 17. My grandfather, there were 21. So practically everybody in east, northeast Texas is some kin to me.
You know, my cousin--I laugh, my cousin Frances Jordan and my sister Mary Annette Gibson, they used to come--see, they were older than me--they'd come to my grandmother and one of the old aunties, and they'd go, 'Now, Big Mama, we ain't kin to Ronnie Jenkins and them.' They said, 'Let me see, is that Mary Elise's child?' And then they'd say, 'Go on. You stay away from that boy.'
Tavis: So when somebody in your family dies, you almost like have to rent out, like, the City Center.
Woodard: Exactly.
Tavis: Who gets to ride in the family car. I have heard that many times. You mention your big mama. And I'm just gonna--this has nothing to do with anything, but I'm just curious. Tell me, like, one of your favorite--tell me about your big mama. And I'm asking only because everybody has a big mama. Mine just died a couple years ago. And people who listen to me on the radio and read my books, whatever, I talk about her, quote her, I talk about her all the time, 'cause I was fortunate that my big mama lived in the house with us. And for the people who are watching who don't know who big mama is, it usually means somebody's grandmother--your grandmother on your mama's side, grandmother on your daddy's side. But your grandmother oftentimes in black families is called your big mama. My big mama grew up--I grew up in the house with her. Just tell me something about your--I'm fascinated by big mama stories.
Woodard: Well, my big mama was separate from Mama Woodard. Mama Woodard was--
Tavis: All right, you got big mama and Mama Woodard. OK, go ahead then.
Woodard: We called her Mom Woodard was... She's like 4'10', little half black-half Irish woman. Just formidable, wore, like, long clothes and just click, click, click. You genuflected in front of Mom Woodard. You did not--
Tavis: What's that mean?
Woodard: Genuflect. You know how you go in the Catholic church, you have to walk in and right before the cross...
Tavis: Big word. I wasn't ready for that.
Woodard: So then-- But she was one of those, 'You don't say a word unless somebody says something to you, little child.' She was one of those kind. You couldn't say, 'Mama, we don't eat okras.' Like, 'You don't tell me what you eat. I'll tell you,' and that kind of thing. But my big mama, who was my mom's mom, they were like big African and Indian, you know, native people mixed together. So they were completely superstitious, raucous, and loud.
My father's family owned land from the beginning. My mother's family were sharecroppers. And I have to tell you a story about this. They named--there were 12 of them--they named one of the sons William Henry Jesse James Arthur Robinson. He had like seven names, because if you're a sharecropper, you named the baby after, like, the biggest white man in the area. You get a whole lot of stuff. They gave him seven names.
Tavis:
Woodard: I was on a plane going to Indianapolis about two weekends ago, and a guy gave me his card that said, 'I'm your biggest fan. I'm also your cousin. I'm Arthur's grandson.' And I jumped over and went. 'You can't be my fan. You're my cousin.' We were like hugging. I met a cousin, my first cousin's son, on a plane. I'm telling you, I'm related to everybody in East Texas.
Tavis: I gotta start digging back into my family tree.
Woodard: But my big mama, she was so much fun because she had this huge sense of humor and she laughed all the time and she swore at us. We'd go, 'Big Mama, what time is it?' And you'd think your grandmother would hold you at her breast. She'd go, 'Time all dogs dead. Ain't you sick?' And she'd, 'Ah-ha-ha!' And I'd go, 'What does that mean?' And she'd go, 'Ask your mammy.' And my mother would say, 'Mom, stop that.'
But eventually--this is tragic, but funny at the same time. She was one that you laid on and laughed and rolled with. And she dipped snuff. But she eventually got diabetes and had to have her leg amputated. So she'd be in the wheelchair and she'd come and visit. And my mother who was like a munchkin--she was a little petite woman--was trying to help big mama on the bed. And so somehow big mama fell on the floor. Well, my mother--instead of everybody panicking, they laughed all the time about everything. So they started laughing. And my big mama was a big kind of black Indian woman. And she--my mama was trying to pick her up. And she got her halfway up, and then she fell over. And they were on the floor laughing. And my father, the son of Mom Woodard, came, in and he just said, 'Con, Mom, you two are just ignorant. I can't believe that.' And my mother and her mother, one leg, on the floor, couldn't get up because they was laughing.
Tavis: Now you see why I asked the big mama question. You can never ask a big mama question and not get a good story out of a big mama question. I'm glad I asked that. I've known you--we've had a chance to know each other for years, and I came to know you not just even through your acting but through your advocacy as well. And I've always loved that about you, that you are an actor and one of the best at it, but also an advocate. There's nobody in this town of Hollywood who cares more about people, more about people than you do. And I've known you, of course, for your work for years through Artists for a New South Africa. Tell me where this spirit of advocacy came from for you.
Woodard: Well, my father, again, I'm from--
Tavis: The son of Mom Woodard.
Woodard: Yeah. Both of my parents were people that lived on the land. And I think one of the things, when you live on the land, you learn to respect it. You learn to use it well. You know that if it doesn't go well for you, then you've gotta pay attention to who it didn't happen for, because it's the luck of the draw. It could be your crop failing that next year.
I remember my father and all of that family talking about, during the Depression, their farm was putting out. It was great. They had people coming through, called them hobos then, but they were somebody's people, and most of them were upstanding working people that had just--were down on their luck. So the sense of whatever is going on with you is directly related to me comes from that. And so I just--it's never been a part of my life to think that I'm set, I'm fine, and not think outside of my yard. So it was just a thing that the way you get taught to, you know, say 'bless you' after a sneeze, or all of those things. Actually, I don't really--it's not a choice for me. It's not one that I make out of any sense of, uh...other than that's what you're supposed to do. I was always told that you couldn't enjoy a feast if there was anybody around you that was hungry.
Tavis: That sound like good advice right there. You cannot enjoy your feast...
Woodard: Unless anybody around you is--if anyone around you is hungry.
Tavis: Makes sense. Alfre, as always, you're spitting out wisdom all the time. Nice to see you.
Woodard: Thank you.
Tavis: 'Beauty Shop' is a new movie starring Alfre Woodard and Queen Latifah and Alicia Silverstone.
Woodard: And there's men in the beauty shop, and the men are gonna want to come see 'Beauty Shop' because there's some pretty women in it.
Tavis: Well, I love beauty shops personally, so...
The website--we were just talking about Artists for a New South Africa, and Alfre's still very much involved. Their website: ANS--Artists for a New South Africa. ANSAfrica.org.
Tavis: Nice to see you again.
Woodard: Tavis, Thank you so much.
Tavis: Glad to have you on here. That's our show tonight. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then good night from L.A. Thanks for watching. And as always keep the faith.
Back to March 21, 2005