About
Alfre Woodard is an American actress known for portraying strong-willed and dignified roles on stage and screen. She has received four Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as nominations for an Academy Award and two Grammy Awards. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her as one of "The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century." She is a board member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Woodard began her acting career in theater. After her breakthrough role in the Off-Broadway play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1977), she made her film debut in Remember My Name (1978). She received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in Cross Creek (1983).
Woodard starred in films such as Grand Canyon (1991), Passion Fish (1992), Heart and Souls (1993), Crooklyn (1994), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Primal Fear (1996), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and Down in the Delta (1998). She earned a BAFTA Award for Best Actress nomination for Clemency (2019). She has also appeared in 12 Years a Slave (2013), Annabelle (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Juanita (2019), The Lion King (2019), and The Gray Man (2022).
Television
Woodard gained prominence for her television role as Dr. Roxanne Turner in the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere, earning an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1986. She received four Primetime Emmy Awards for Hill Street Blues (1984), L.A. Law (1987), the HBO film Miss Evers' Boys (1997), and The Practice (2003).
From 2005 to 2006, Woodard starred as Betty Applewhite in Desperate Housewives. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe she portrayed Mariah Dillard Stokes in the Netflix series Luke Cage (2016–2018).
Activism
Woodard is also known for her work as a political activist and producer. She is a founder of Artists for a New South Africa, an organization devoted to advancing democracy and equality in that country.