Video Interview: The Porter’s Alfre Woodard

With an acting career that spans more than four decades, Alfre Woodard’s list of credits and accolades is both long and varied. She has received four Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and two Grammy Awards. Her work includes See, Luke Cage and The Family That Preys, and she can currently be seen co-starring in The Porter on BET+ (U.S.) and CBC (Canada).

Set in the early 1920s and inspired by real events, The Porter follows train porters Junior Massey and Zeke Garrett and their friends and families as a tragedy on the job sets them on starkly different paths to better lives—and on a direct collision course with each other. It touches on themes such as racial and class inequality, human rights and making change within one’s community.

Woodard, who also serves as an executive producer on The Porter, talks to TV Drama  about the global resonance of the series and its themes.