S16
THE ENVELOPE LOS ANGELES TIMES TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019
A
lfre Woodard
enters a hotel suite
resplendent in a
white dress. Then
again, she’s always
resplendent. The renowned ac-
tress is apparently unable to do
any less than her best; over four
decades of acting she’s accumulat-
ed a Golden Globe, an Independ-
ent Spirit Award, several SAG and
Emmy awards and an Academy
Award nomination, along with
nods just about everywhere else.
Just a few of her recent roles
include the ill-fated Aunt Jo-
sephine in the darkly comic Net-
flix show “Lemony Snicket’s A Se-
ries of Unfortunate Events,” the
voice of Sarabi in “The Lion King”
remake and the duplicitous crimi-
nal Mariah in “Luke Cage.” “I
think that was one of my best
turns ever,” she says of the last,
with evident glee.
Her latest role is Bernadine
Williams in the Neon film “Clem-
ency.” As warden of a prison with
inmates on death row, Bernadine
enforces the law down to the
smallest detail, no matter the ef-
fect it has on her own psyche.
Written and directed by Chi-
nonye Chukwu, the film shines a
light on some of the overlooked
victims of a policy that puts a hu-
man to death — those who carry
out the job. As Bernadine, Wood-
ard sinks to a fathomless place as
she struggles to reconcile her
spirit and her task.
The actor got there with the
same approach she applies to ev-
ery portrayal. “You take that re-
sponsibility so deeply,” she says.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s Bernadine
or Josephine. Anthropologically, I
work up who that person is,where they’re from — not what
state, what countyin that state.
What’s happened to them? If it’s
not in the script, you make it up.
And so you leave behind all of
you. Not only your way of speak-
ing, your way of moving, but es-
pecially your way of looking at
the world. Because your opinions,
and anything about yourself as a
practitioner, should not be pre-
sent.”
Woodard adds that she never
sits down to think a character into
existence, “because people live in
motion. If you sit, it’s still cer-
ebral. You have to activate things.”
She adds, laughing, that the
cashiers at Erewhon Market al-
ways know when she’s working
on a new role.
When she read the “Clemen-
cy” script, Bernadine hit her “in
the solar plexus,” so she had to
take it on.
“It was a world I was com-
pletely ignorant of. I’m a grown-
up woman, very grown up, and
I’m educated, and I’m politically
aware and socially active since I
was a teenager, so for me to go,‘Whoa, I didn’t know these people
existed’ — I figured if I didn’t
know, the majority of people
didn’t. It’s always another reason
to go to work: There’s something
to be told. And if there’s some-
thing where lives are in the bal-
ance, you always want to honor
it.” She signed on as an executive
producer as well.
Woodard and Chukwu visited
four prisons and met with female
wardens, listening to their stories.
“What we found is that their
PTSD rate is as high as people we
send into battle for multiple tours
of duty,” she says. “They have sev-
eral marriages — if they marry.
They keep to themselves in a way,
because nobody can understand
what they do. It is not for a person
who is either weak or sadistic; it is
only for a person who can make
decisions, take incoming fire and
rest knowing that they have over-
seen a dozen executions. And
some people will do that work for
us.”
Everything must go according
to protocol. “That’s why Berna-
dine gets upset when somethinggoes wrong,” early in the film,
“because it deprives the con-
demned person of their dignity.”
Shooting was so intense that
when prepping to film an execu-
tion scene, two of the background
actors tasked with strapping
down the prisoner couldn’t go
through with it and had to be re-
placed. “They got triggered,” she
notes.
The film is as challenging to
watch. “It starts with the bases
loaded,” Woodard acknowledges.
“I don’t think either the charac-
ters or the audience is let off the
hook. It’s a world that human be-
ings are not meant to be in,
whether it’s the incarcerated or
the incarcerators. So it can bring
out desperate acts.” She pauses. “I
just got really sad.”
To lighten the mood, the con-
versation turns to her other latest
project, “See,” on AppleTV+. In
the futuristic series about a de-
pleted, blind population, she
plays Paris, priestess and advisor
to Jason Momoa’s tribal leader.
Woodard laughs at the men-
tion of the role. “I put out to the
universe, ‘Send me something
that will challenge me, that I’ve
never done, something to test my-
self with.’ Well, don’t ask for what
you’re not ready for.”
She tells of working outdoors
in the British Columbia wilder-
ness every day for seven months,
“up to our calves in mud and snow
and water. They would put out
bear warnings every day! It was
like I signed up for the Shackleton
expedition, I am not kidding. It
was such an adventure.”
Still, she’s ready to test herself
yet again; they begin shooting the
second season in February. 8Facing
brutal
truths
As a prison warden
overseeing executions
in ‘Clemency,’
Alfre Woodardtook
the responsibility of
the role deeply.
BY LISA ROSEN
Carolyn ColeLos Angeles Times