‘Boroughs’ actor Alfre Woodard reminds us to look to our elders

Fresh Air

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Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.3 • 36.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

Alfre Woodard stars in the new Netflix series ‘The Boroughs,’ a supernatural mystery from the producers of ‘Stranger Things.’ In it, she leads an ensemble of folks in a retirement community who band together to stop an otherworldly threat. She spoke with Tonya Mosley about the new show, her Emmy-winning performance on ‘Hill Street Blues,’ where she played a mother whose child was killed by a police officer, and her network of Black actresses in Hollywood.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is award-winning actor Alfry Woodard.
0:06.4	We've been watching her on television, film, and the stage for decades.
0:11.0	She has played wives, mothers, nurses, friends, lovers, and prison wardens,
0:16.9	women carrying their families through the ordinary and the unimaginable.
0:22.8	Her work in a very real way has become a record of American life. Now she's in a new sci-fi Netflix series called The Burroughs
0:29.2	from the creators of Stranger Things. The Duffer brothers have said the show exists because they
0:34.9	couldn't understand why no one had made another cocoon since cocoon,
0:39.2	the 1985 film about retirees who discover a fountain of youth. Well, 40 years later, they've set
0:45.9	their version in an upscale retirement community in New Mexico, where something supernatural
0:51.1	is preying on the residents. Woodard plays Judy, a retired journalist who was sidelined in her career but hasn't let go of her instincts.
1:00.6	She lives in the community with her husband, played by Clark Peters, and when a recent widower
1:05.3	moves next door, Judy does what she's done her whole working life. She starts looking him up.
1:10.9	I found his wife's obituary.
1:13.3	Who?
1:14.1	Our new neighbor. Samuel Darwin Cooper. Born Chicago, Illinois, December 10th,
1:23.3	1950's free. You gotta stop stalking people.
1:28.7	Not stalking.
1:30.7	Investigating.
1:33.0	You're not a reporter anymore.
1:34.2	Journalist.
1:36.4	And that makes it stalking.
1:39.6	His wife died of a stroke five months ago.
	...

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