Blair Underwood has been a leading man for more than 40 years. The veteran actor has crossed genres and broken barriers through his roles, and he’s now opening up about his life and career in TV One’s latest episode of Uncensored.
For the first time, the actor, husband and father shares deeply personal reflections about his journey, including stories about roles he earned, roles he turned down and how the COVID-19 pandemic shifted his life in unexpected ways.
Ahead of the episode, Underwood spoke with Blavity about the special and what’s next for him in what he calls the golden era of his life.
This Uncensored episode was a deeply personal special. What made you want to be so vulnerable and bare it all in the 40-minute episode?
That’s a great question. Thank you for watching it, by the way. It’s interesting, Courtney Parker is a friend of mine. Courtney Parker produced the piece, and she brought my sister Marlo Underwood on to produce it, and Marlo also interviewed me. So it was an opportunity to work with my sister. I trust Courtney’s integrity, and trust that she was going to do right by me. I wasn’t really familiar with the show. I’ve seen a couple of episodes, but I didn’t know what they wanted to do with me and what I was going to talk about and expose. So to work with Courtney, to work with my sister Marlo, it just made sense.
Over the years, you know, I haven’t given a lot of depth into my life. It’s personal. I’m one of those actors who — it’s my 40th year in the business — so it’s kind of old school in that you do your work and your life is separate. We live in a different time where everybody exposes their personal life, and that’s just not who I am. But this was an environment where I could do it and felt safe about doing it there.
That was another question that I was going to ask, because you do come from the era of an artist being an artist and letting their work speak for them and keeping their personal life separate. But we are in the digital age and social media is a thing. And reality television is a thing. So after doing this, would you consider being more open and talking more about your life or your personal life, at least to impart lessons upon those coming up in the business now?
Absolutely. Because it’s not even so much about the work. After 40 years, I’ve had an opportunity to establish myself. So a lot of that mindset is you’re trying to establish yourself so people see you in a certain way. It’s kind of like, ‘Are you a daytime soap opera actor? Are you a comedy actor? Are you a dramatic actor?’ I’ve been very blessed. I’m grateful to have been able to establish a lot of that. So I feel more open and freer to do more of that.
And also, like you said, as you alluded to, sometimes it’s important to speak up and speak to certain issues and thoughts because we’re all wrestling and struggling with different things. A lot of things we talked about in Uncensored came about because of the pandemic. We were in this global traumatic moment, and out of that came my divorce and then a new chapter of life. But we’re all struggling in different ways. So now, I’m more open to that. If I can be a help to that just by sharing my story, then why not?
Now, I want to talk a little bit about some of the things that you delved into in Uncensored. There was a pivotal moment when you discussed quitting, I believe it was baseball, and your father told you that that was fine, but that you have to quit on your own. And it was a big lesson and turning point for you, even in your youth. And it made you really emotional because you said that you never wanted to disappoint your father and your goal was to make him proud, which you did. But how did that lesson carry you throughout your life and career?
It was actually football in high school, and I played Little League football from 3rd grade up until high school. We moved to Petersburg, Virginia, and these brothers, these corn-fed brothers were hitting me like I’ve never been hit, and it just wasn’t fun anymore, to be honest with you, and that’s why I kind of transitioned into acting. But the lesson that my dad said regarding quitting and doing so on your own has stayed with me. I’ve raised my kids the same way because so much of what we do is showing your integrity to complete the race.
When people hire you, it’s because they can trust you that you’ll do the job, number one, and that you’ll do the job efficiently and effectively. But also you’ll complete the job, and they can rely on that. So that’s just the tenet of life, but it was really instilled in me and emblazoned in my brain and in my spirit at that time because of that situation with my dad.
You also opened up about certain roles throughout your career, some of which you turned down because of stereotypes or wanted to tweak because of such. Talk to us a bit about what you look for and don’t look for in roles that you take on.
I look for roles where I can do something different. And if there is similar ground we’re treading, that’s OK. I just finished doing a movie called Don’t Ever Wonder. It’s a Christmas movie, which I’ve always wanted to do. It’s with Nia Long and Larenz Tate.
If you know or love Love Jones from back in the day, the classic Black love story movie. It’s not a continuation of those characters, but it’s two different characters, played by these actors, Larenz and Nia. They are a married couple, and their daughter has gone off to college and they’re dealing with empty nest syndrome. She wants to go back into the workforce and finds a gentleman there, my character, and it’s kind of a little love triangle dynamic.
That is familiar ground in terms of me being a love interest. But every project has different things that are interesting. In this case, I’ve never worked with Nia, never worked with Larenz. I always wanted to. We’ve always seen each other and crossed paths and always said, ‘We have to work together one day.’ And it was a Christmas movie. It’s a Netflix movie, it’ll be out next Christmas.
I also have a movie coming out on March 6, Young Blood. It is about a hockey player. My son is a hockey player in the movie, and it’s his journey playing hockey — a Black hockey player in Toronto. That’s exciting. So it’s really about what is unexpected, or something fresh and new for me to do, and also for me to be able to show to an audience.
Now speaking of roles, in Uncensored, your daughter actually spoke to you about her friends or her peers not ever seeing you in a good guy role and that historically you’ve always taken on bad guy characters. But you tend to lean to the latter because they have more depth. What would you say are some of the roles that you’re known for, especially because you cross generations?
It really kind of depends on the genre. The one thing I’ve always tried to do was diversify my audience. I never wanted to be put into a box, and Hollywood will put you into a box, whether it’s a type of character, a psychographic like he’s a good guy, he’s a bad guy, or he’s an upwardly mobile white-collar lawyer or doctor, or he’s a blue-collar guy.
The father I play in this hockey movie, Young Blood, that’s coming out, he’s a blue-collar kind of guy, so that was unique and different. But you know what I’m grateful for in this 41st year in the industry is to have been able to traverse different types of genres.
Walking down the street, somebody will say, ‘I loved you on Sex and the City.’ And there weren’t necessarily a lot of Black women who watched that. It didn’t really have a huge Black audience. People loved me in Set It Off, or LA Law. The projects I’m doing now with the movies we’ve spoken about, some that I haven’t even announced yet, including me doing a show in Canada for a season, which is a very different audience completely. So you’re right, it’s generational, but it’s also intentional and varied in the type of audiences I’ve always wanted to entertain.
You talk a lot about family in this episode. I know you mentioned you were living with your siblings in a big house in the Hollywood Hills. I loved that. So you talk about your siblings, your parents, your ex-wife and your children. How has your family kept you centered in Tinseltown?
They have kept me centered by giving me a purpose for living and for working and creating a life. In a nutshell, that’s really it. When my kids were born — I have 3 biological kids, Paris, Briel and Blake — and my wife and I now, Josie, we have 9 together. She has 6, I have 3. So those are my bonus kids. But it’s a very big family.
But my kids, especially when we were raising them, all your focus goes from whatever your journey is as an individual. Once they show up, your focus shifts to what does that child need, what do these children need, what does this family need? And all of your decisions you make as a responsible adult are informed by those human beings and those lives that you’ve been trusted to lead.
So that’s how it affected me in this Hollywood world. It kept that as the foundation of what is the most important thing, and it’s those kids and it is family, the relationships with parents.
My mother passed in 2020. Her book is coming out, her memoir called A Soldier’s Wife. Please pre-order it now because it’s on Amazon right now. This is the 8th book I’ve had in the marketplace, and I’m proud of it. You talk about being personal — it is the most personal I’ve ever been because it’s my mama.
So, you also mentioned that you’re divorced. What did divorce teach you, and what did love the second time around teach you?
My divorce happened during the pandemic. I think it was exacerbated because of the pandemic, just how our whole lives were turned upside down and we were forced, in the best of ways, to just sit down and reevaluate who we were.
We came to an agreement that we both knew, but we hadn’t really spoken to it, that our marriage had evolved to the point of it being time to go in different directions. It was the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make.
And I think beyond the decision between the two of us was informing our kids that that was the direction we had to go in. It was the hardest thing we’ve ever had to do. But it also taught me that human beings and children are resilient if you lead with love — family and love, and God and faith. If you lead with those tenets, then everything will fall in place.
So now it’s five years later, and they couldn’t be happier. Everybody has readjusted and adapted. I think kids, when you raise them, you kind of look through your own prism. But as long as they know they’re going to be OK, as long as they know they’ll be seen and respected, they’ll be OK. That’s what we tried to do and continue to do.
And in another scene, you talk about being on L.A. Law and the international impact that the show had during its time. You spoke about art being able to transcend race, finances and more — it’s about how it touches the person receiving it. What do you ultimately want your legacy to be?
Oh, that’s a deep question. I think ultimately, at the end of the day, our job is to entertain an audience. So I think ultimately I want people to say that they felt entertained, but they also had thought provoked. Maybe they were affected in a certain way. Maybe they were enlightened. Maybe they were elevated.
Entertaining is the lowest common denominator. If you can make somebody think and grow and affect change within that spirit or mind — maybe take somebody on a more positive path — that’s a beautiful thing.
One of the things I’m always appreciative of is when I run into people and they say, which I hear a lot, ‘I went to law school because I saw you on L.A. Law.’ Things like that.
My wife Josie is Trinidadian, and I just got back from Carnival. We took a cruise there, docked there and did Carnival. But so many people on the boat talked about seeing me and their mother, grandmother or aunt telling them I was the type of Black man they wanted them to grow into just based on my characters. That is incredibly humbling, and part of the legacy that I’m proud of and hope to leave when it’s all said and done.
Uncensored airs weekly on TV One. Watch the interview below:
The post Blair Underwood On Baring All In ‘Uncensored’ After 40 Years Of Primarily Keeping Work And Life Separate appeared first on Blavity.
