Lynn Whitfield Believes ‘Aging Is Something to Embrace’: ‘I’m Proud of the Longevity in My Career’

From the age of 5, Lynn Whitfield went to the movies with her grandmother and sat mesmerized and inspired by the faces on the big screen. “I didn’t notice that Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn weren’t brown,” she tells Closer, “and I didn’t really notice that Ruby Dee, Lena Horne and Diahann Carroll were brown.” In acting, she adds, “I just saw something that I thought I would be able to do well.”

The Baton Rouge, Louisiana, native found her first success on stage in her early 20s in the 1977 L.A. production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. But it’s on TV where her star began to shine most brightly, in The Women of Brewster Place and in the title role of HBO’s 1991 telefilm The Josephine Baker Story, for which she won that year’s Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy Award. More recently, Lynn, 71, has appeared as two fearsome matriarchs — as Lady Mae in the OWN network drama Greenleaf and currently as the revenge-driven Alicia on Showtime’s The Chi. Lynn also stars in the new big-screen adventure Albany Road, which opened in theaters on November 15.

Tell us about your role in Albany Road.

“In Albany Road, I’m playing against type, as a simple, more flat-footed and straightforward kind of woman. There’s no glamour, and hardly any makeup, so it’s a departure from roles that I’m often offered. The movie explores intricate family relationships. I took on the role shortly after my only brother passed. I feel I have a whole new view of life and mortality, of family love and complexity, and this film gave me the opportunity to use all those things in a very vital way.”

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You’re also on Showtime’s The Chi. What does that role mean to you?

“The Chi means a lot because it’s a very young cast in an urban-leaning show. For me to be able to fold into the existing cast and bring something to the show was great for me, another fresh and new opportunity. I’ve often based characters on women in my family, like my Aunt Elaine, who was my inspiration in Eve’s Bayou. But with Alicia, none of the women in my family was a gangster. I mean, I don’t think they ever shot anybody! So the show gives me a whole other psyche to explore.”

Was your family supportive of your acting dreams?

“My mom has always been so glamorous, elegant and adventurous. She always wanted to try being a pilot, and she finally took her first flight lesson a few years ago, when she turned 90. So much of my portrayal of Josephine Baker was based on her. My dad was a dentist but also wrote beautiful music and worked with the local theater and Baton Rouge Community Chorus. So, I had exposure to the arts from my really wonderful, colorful Tennessee Williams-esque family. But were they supportive? Absolutely not. They were all professionals, mostly in medicine. They were very myopic about career and expectations and did not understand taking a chance. I was on my own with this vision, but I was so excited that my mother and father were there with me at the Emmys when I won.”

That must have felt like validation.

“Yes, and that’s so marvelous. And beautiful Emmy, she’s such a good girl. She’s sitting with me at home. She doesn’t have a sister, and she doesn’t have a husband named Oscar. She needs that man, or at least a proposal. Time is marching on, though, Hollywood. Come on and roll the dice on me!”

What do you consider your big break?

“Oh, well, for sure it was Josephine. It put me in that category where people will come to count on me to carry a project. Making the film, I would have to pinch myself, even after 18 hours of hard work, that I got to be in Budapest [Hungary], shooting in beautiful opera houses and getting to be involved in storytelling in the grand Hollywood tradition. So much care was taken with the costumes, the sets, the lighting — every day I would wake up and feel like a real movie star. It was the second time I’d gotten that feeling, after making Silverado in New Mexico with Kevin Kline and Kevin Costner. Both times, I was living what I had imagined as a little girl that a Hollywood movie would be like. And with Josephine, I was at its center — certainly a first for me, but also in a very rare film that is woman-centric, not to mention African American-centric.”

But you found success in theater even earlier with For Colored Girls.

“Success. Yes, I was able to find part of my tribe, and part of the fulfillment of what I felt I was meant to be doing, early on, right out of college. It was marvelous touring with For Colored Girls, being introduced to Australia and playing the West End. I’ve been very lucky to have many lovely highlights in my career, but I also remember the droughts. It’s not until I’m talking with you like this, when we really string things together, that my career does seem very successful and connected. It makes me sit in gratitude and realize that there’s more than one way to look back.”

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What are you most proud of?

“I’m proudest of having such a strong relationship with my daughter, Grace Gibson, and that we’re each other’s artistic muses. We have so many things in common. She’s a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and she is so absolutely talented. Along with the composer and scorer of the film, Grace wrote the theme song for Albany Road, and she sings it. I can’t wait for the world to experience and share what she does.”

What do you like most about the age you are today?

“Maybe that you can get away with saying more. I think that aging is something to embrace and accept. I’m proud of the longevity in my career. I’m so happy to be here, and I’m going to keep it all as fresh and fabulous as I possibly can, which takes discipline. I don’t love the manifestations of aging. If I had my choice, it would be me and Dracula, baby! Not that I want to sell my soul, but if I could have the exterior that I had 30 years ago, or 20, or even 10, I would. I was still kind of fine back then, but now I have more knowledge, grace and poise within me.”