Fans of actress Alfre Woodard should prepare to be delighted come Nov. 17. That is when Woodard returns to television—and in a big way. A four-time Emmy nominee, Woodard is set to star as president of the United States in the upcoming NBC show, “State of Affairs.” She stars with Katherine Heigl, perhaps best known as the character Izzie Stevens from “Grey’s Anatomy.” Heigl plays Charlie Tucker, a former CIA analyst handpicked to become the president’s daily briefer.
Charlie is not just any daily briefer though; Charlie was also the fiancee of the president’s now-deceased son.
Says Woodard, “At the start of our pilot [episode], we are on a congressional tour in Afghanistan and we are attacked, and my son, who is an aid worker, human rights worker, he is killed in that attack.” Thus history creates a powerful dynamic between the two characters.
Woodard explains further: “Not only do we work together at the very top—two women in the seat of power—you see it because we are very capable, capable of doing this job we’re doing, but we’re also bound by this tragedy. We have been robbed—me of my son, her of her fiance, me of my grandchildren, her of her future—and so there is added fuel for why we go after the guys we’re going after.”
Woodard describes her character as ascending to the presidency by way of the Senate. As part of her work as an actress, she had to “chart” the backstory of her character. She describes the character as a wife and mom. Her husband, in true Washington, D.C., fashion, is a political lawyer. Her character is also a former Army brat. She got to the Senate by way of the military. Woodard says, “We haven’t had a military president since Eisenhower, so we thought that was a really intriguing place to start … So it’s all very believable how she got elected as president.” Distinguished actor Courtney B. Vance, husband of Angela Bassett, plays Payton’s husband, aka the “first gentleman.”
I asked Woodard about the inevitable observations that some will make about the sudden proliferation of Black women playing not just powerful, but influential leading characters on network television this year. She responded that it is mainly a consequence of showrunners simply looking for the best actress to play a particular character. “We’re there not because people were looking or saying, ‘We need more Black women … The reason it happened is because of the brilliance of the actors and the perseverance of the actors.”
She also alluded to the importance of the viewing public when casting decisions are being made. “We have stayed the course, and so more of the public have seen smaller things, different things we’ve done, and they’ll say our fan base would say, ‘Where are they? I wanna see this person.’ The people making decisions to put us there just happened to be looking for the best person they could find.”
“State of Affairs” debuts Nov. 17 on NBC.
