AARP The Magazine EXCLUSIVE: Alfre Woodard on Teamwork, Resilience and Making an Impact that Endures

WASHINGTON—Alfre Woodard is one of the most successful actors in Hollywood, but you might not recognize her if you saw her on the street. During her nearly 50-year career, encompassing well over 100 roles, she has won a Golden Globe and four Emmys, and she has been nominated for an Oscar. She has played a U.S. president, a crime boss, an anti-apartheid activist and more. From a dimly lit booth in a Manhattan eatery, Woodard, 73, spoke with AARP The Magazine, opening up about a life and career of trust, faith and storytelling.

Describing the set of her new Netflix series, The Boroughs, in which a group of retirement community residents battle an otherworldly threat, Woodard, a former high school athlete (track and basketball), likens her fellow septuagenarian castmates – including Alfred Molina, Geena Davis and Bill Pullman – to a seasoned relay team. “It was like we’d been running together since junior high and now you’re at the Olympics,” she says. “You put your hand out, bam, you know the baton is there.”

In an industry whose stars often cannot separate their own personalities from the roles they play, Woodard is an actor’s actor, as one critic put it – “chameleonic, idiosyncratic, true.” At the same time, for a major star she has a somewhat unusual passion: teamwork.  “Alfre never feels it’s a solo enterprise,” says filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill), who directed her in two movies from the 1990s, Grand Canyon and Mumford.

The following are excerpts from ATM’s June/July 2026 feature story with Alfre Woodard. The issue is available in homes starting in June and online now at www.aarp.org/magazine.

On the negative feedback she received when she began acting:

“Oh, honey,” a Black theater actress warned her, “there’s no such thing as a Black film actress.” But Woodard wasn’t discouraged. “In my mind, I just went, Well, that’s not my reality.” She joined an improv troupe and waited to get film auditions. “I wouldn’t get an audition for nine or 10 months at a time,’’ she remembers. When she’d hear about a role, “my agents would say, ‘Oh, Alfre, that’s not for you. It says, ‘attractive young Black woman.’”

On growing up in Tulsa during segregation:

“From the time I can remember, my father would say, ‘Nobody, no man in this world, I don’t care who it is, is better than you are,’” she says. “What I got from my family is a strong sense of self, a sense of value.” At age 5, “my father made us watch the news e­ery night,” she recalls. “I was watching the Civil Rights Movement.” By age 10, she was helping her parents register voters.

On carving out roles for herself: