Alfre Woodard: What's It All About, Alfre?

Why exactly does Woodard do the projects she does? "Because I have a certain way of looking at the world, certain values," she explains. "You do what's right, what's honest, what makes you feel good. I had a great childhood. I was popular, I had loving parents. But I had the constant feeling of having sand in my pants. It was because I was an artist and didn't know it. I felt like I was doing the breast stroke as a kid, being normal, but, suddenly, when I got to do my first play, it was like somebody dropped me in the water for the first time. My God, to know who you are, to know how you're supposed to earn the breath you draw. It's such a release."

By many accounts, Woodard has,since moving to L.A. in 1974, bagged most of what there is of the good and sort-of-good stuff for Afro-American actresses in these lean times--even if Whoopi Goldberg, not she, played the role Woodard dearly wanted in The Color Purple and Lonette McKee played the girlfriend role Woodard sought opposite Richard Pryor in Brewster's Millions. But does she still have to audition for filmmakers? Recently, she says, "I read for Stanley what's-his-name? You know, decadent, wacky Stanley. Tarantino, that's it. I mean, Quentin. Anyway, that was for Pulp Fiction and he was seeing me, Halle Berry, I think Annabella Sciorra and Uma Thurman. But he was looking at an array of people who looked nothing alike and weren't the same ages, so I understood what track he was on and didn't mind it." (In the end, Uma Thurman got the role.) How does Woodard feel, after all this time, about getting psyched up to see directors about parts? "Well, I dolled up when I went to read for Larry Kasdan and Grand Canyon," she answers, "because I wanted a different role from the one he was thinking of me for. But I ain't gonna jump through no hoops for anyone's private Cirque du Soleil. It's all about how the director feels in the moment or how I make them feel. See, I'm the average American person, so my only gauge when I'm thinking about a role is, 'What makes me interested?' I'm the one who's gonna be with me all the time, and if I can keep myself from being bored with what I'm doing, then nobody else can tell me they're bored with what I'm doing."

At least Tarantino and some others seem to appreciate about Woodard what I do: that she's not only a formidable actor, but a pretty much untapped source of sensuality on-screen. She shrugs it off. "When I first came to L.A., I was told I didn't look 'black American' enough, just as white, all-American girls get put through a test to see if they're the 'look,' and, if they don't pass, they play the friend or the babysitter. Darling, you have to realize, it's just in the past couple of years that the fantasy machine can admit that a brown-skinned woman who has African features could be appealing. Strong, nurturing, victimized, yes. Appealing? Very recent. [The same is true of] black men, too. Denzel makes 'em squirm whenever he touches a white woman. And every woman wants to be touched by Denzel. Oh, I shouldn't say shit like that, I should say they find him 'terribly attractive.'"

While we're on this topic, what is sexy in movies? "Movies don't tend to be really sexy, because when you set out to be sexy, it's funny. Real sexuality drips off you like vapor. You don't even know you're doing it. I have nothing against Sharon Stone, but if I wanted to do something that she would do--actually, I've never seen anything I'd want to do that she has--it would have to be really sexy for a reason. Otherwise, you might just as well be in Penthouse."

Guessing that I'm in for an earful, I ask Woodard what she thinks of the Menace II Society/Hughes Brothers/ New Jack City school of moviemaking--the "new black cinema"?

"Suddenly, anybody who falls out of a housing project or a low-riding car is getting a studio deal," she observes, eyes flashing. "I don't want to see a new film every week with crotch-grabbing, bitch-swearing and guns. I resent these movies being passed off as 'cinema.' Why is it that when most of the guys get deals with a studio, the deal stipulates that their movies have to be inner-city, hardcore, urban dredge? I'm not talking about Boyz N the Hood, because John Singleton is a remarkable filmmaker. Everybody knows who I'm talking about. Though I don't believe in naming names, I'll speak the truth to shame the devil. I'm gonna talk about the people that keep throwing money at them. Most of these studio [bosses], like the people they're making deals with, are hustlers who will do anything to put over their hustle and to pass it off as cinema. A lot of the [public's] only contact with 'other' people is what they see on TV or on the movie screen. So, if all they're seeing is young black boys with Uzis, they're going, 'Yeah, that's why I'm a racist, that's why I don't want those people near my garage or my daughter or my whatever.'"

Woodard continues, quietly fiery. "Our young moviemakers have got to learn that the conditions of these movie deals have nothing to do with African-Americans as people. They don't know they're mimicking the man. They think they're doing something all their own, when they're just getting used as sound bites and props that make the Hollywood powers-that-be, who are very insecure people, feel better about themselves. If movies are fantasies, then today they're the fantasies of men. They've never given America anything but their own private little locker-room fantasies. These men need people to behave a certain way in their fantasies, which is why women are still running around just decorating the screen. If a real woman is on-camera, she's called a strong woman. As if every woman ain't strong. These men need to keep saying, 'America's not ready for this or that,' when they're so out of touch with what the hell America is ready for.

"It's easier for the guys who run this town to imagine that black people, brown people, poor people are so completely different from them. It's much less frightening for them to project images on the screen of gun-wielding, crack-selling bangers," Woodard adds. "If [studio bosses] thought for a minute about black people, brown people, poor people as people, they would then have to admit that there isn't all that much that separates their lives, their nice houses from those 'other' people. The executives would have to acknowledge that it is only by privilege of color that they might be in the job they hold, the house they're in. That's why our best actors, directors and producers, people with wonderful stories about people of color, have been trying and failing to get audiences with the powers-that-be. But let some kid bring in a project with gang kids packing Uzis and they've got a deal. If Hollywood executives find something that makes them money, it's like a gang bang. This just pisses me off. See, now you've gotten me serious and sincere, right?"

Clearly, Woodard separates out from the pack not only John Singleton, but also Spike Lee, for whom she stars in Crooklyn. "There are guys who will not be denied. Spike could live in a country where it was against the law to speak to anybody, and he would still be making films. He's an auteur who furthers the stock of the state of the art for American filmmakers the way Bob Altman does. He's one of the few that, when you think of the history of film, you can see him writing his pages. Even when he makes mistakes, I'm excited by them. I don't know what Crooklyn looks like, but I know that Spike is really excited about it, and Spike excited is, like, a funny picture. It's a movie [where] you see black people move around in a world, not just in a low-riding car. And I'm such a bitch in it, a real screamer."

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