‘Boroughs’ actor Alfre Woodard reminds us to look to our elders
5/28/202644 min
Alfre Woodard stars in the new Netflix series ‘The Boroughs,’ a supernatural mystery from the producers of ‘Stranger Things.’ In it, she leads an ensemble of folks in a retirement community who band together to stop an otherworldly threat. She spoke with Tonya Mosley about the new show, her Emmy-winning performance on ‘Hill Street Blues,’ where she played a mother whose child was killed by a police officer, and her network of Black actresses in Hollywood.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Tonya Mosley· Host0:14
This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is award-winning actor Alfre Woodard. We've been watching her on television, film, and the stage for decades. She has played wives, mothers, nurses, friends, lovers, and prison wardens, women carrying their families through the ordinary and the unimaginable. Her work, in a very real way, has become a record of American life. Now she's in a new sci-fi Netflix series called The Burrows from the creators of Stranger Things. The Duffer Brothers have said the show exists because they couldn't understand why no one had made another Cocoon since Cocoon, the 1985 film about retirees who discover a fountain of youth. Well, 40 years later, they've set their version in an upscale retirement community in New Mexico where something supernatural is preying on the residents. Woodard plays Judy, a retired journalist who was sidelined in her career but hasn't let go of her instincts. She lives in the community with her husband, played by Clark Peters, and when a recent widower moves next door, Judy does what she's done her whole working life. She starts looking him up.
Alfre Woodard· Guest1:25
I found his wife's obituary.
Speaker 31:28
Who?