How Sheryl Lee Ralph Is Reshaping Hollywood

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sheryl Lee Ralph has been a staple of Black entertainment for decades. She played Deena Jones in the original Broadway production of “Dreamgirls,” and was in “Sister Act 2” alongside Lauryn Hill and Whoopi Goldberg. She’s currently starring in the new ABC sitcom “Abbott Elementary,” for which she just won her first Emmy Award. Her decades-long career gives her a unique perspective on how the industry has changed since she started—and how it hasn’t. “I think that, sometimes in order for institutions like Broadway to truly make room for others, you’ve got to break it down,” she tells The New Yorker’s Vinson Cunningham. “Because you’ve got to help people see things differently, outside of their own vision. And, even if it’s 20/20, it’s not perfect.”

This segment was originally aired on February 25, 2022.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.3	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:11.6	I'm Gofen Putubwele.
0:14.5	Last night, the actor Cheryl Lee Ralph clinched her first Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting
0:22.7	Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on the show, Abbott Elementary.
0:27.7	That's the ABC sitcom created and written by Quinta Brunson.
0:33.0	On the show, Ralph plays a no-nonsense kindergarten teacher, but at the Emmys, she radiated genuine
0:40.2	surprise and gratitude as she accepted her award.
0:43.6	I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like.
0:52.1	And don't you ever, ever give up on you.
1:00.6	She even broke out into song.
1:02.6	I am an endangered species, but I see no victim song.
1:17.6	I am a woman, I am a noticed and unknown.
1:29.1	Where my voice belongs.
1:46.6	I am a woman, I am a woman, I am a woman, I am a noticed and unknown.
1:53.7	I am a noticed and unknown.
1:57.2	I am a noticed and unknown.
2:04.3	She has been a staple of Black television and movies for decades and has been present
2:10.1	at some amazing moments of American entertainment.
2:14.9	She played Dina Jones in the original cast of Dreamgirls 40 years ago.
2:19.8	She was in Sister Act 2 with Lauren Hill and would be Goldberg, which was just a huge
2:26.2	movie for Black audiences and one of my all-time favorites to this day.
	...

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