I’ve watched enough PBS so that I don’t see her first. I hear her first. IMDb, notorious for missing large numbers of credits for PBS voiceover work, says she has 167 credits as “Self.” Now, that includes appearances on talk shows, non-PBS shows, and so forth. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to know that she has that many credits narrating things like American Experience alone. Wikipedia basically doesn’t mention that aspect of her career at all. It can be really frustrating to start second-guessing yourself because the sites are incomplete.
Mind you this is in no way intended to criticize her acting. She is a remarkably talented actress. She’s also done some producing and a lot of activism. But most of what she’s done has been performing. She’s incredibly good at it and has been known to be so for decades; her Oscar nomination is from nearly forty years ago now, and she’s been a constant presence in movies and TV ever since. She has a rich, warm, eminently believable voice.
In fact, as far as her talent goes, I’ll be one of the few people to go to bat for her Luke Cage appearance. I like where they went with the character, even if I don’t believe that the show needed to go as hard into serialization as it did. Her Mariah Dillard was torn between a drive for respectability and a need for power however it comes, and that’s a fascinating dichotomy that Woodard was fully capable of acting to the best of the script’s ability to give it to her. And to be fair, I don’t think other people are criticizing her; they’re criticizing the scripts, and they’re not entirely wrong to do so.
She’s one of the few people in the MCU with appearances as two different characters, and she’s basically wasted by both of them. In one case, it’s because the Netflix shows are now of questionable canon status. In the other, it’s because she’s playing a one-and-done character who doubtless will never appear again, just a reason for Tony to be shown as flawed and scarred and so forth. He’s hurt others without realizing it, and Miriam exists to make Tony sad and drive him into stupid acts, as though Tony needs anyone else to make him do stupid acts.
While we’re giving people who have never really had one later-career starring roles, we should definitely consider Alfre Woodard. Everyone knows she’s been doing great work for years, and goodness knows she isn’t without her connections in the industry—maybe Denzel Washington, whose TV love interest she once played, can put in a good word for her with someone. Though she’s back into the MCU right now, this time using that wonderful voice of hers. Maybe that’ll remind people to cast her in quality rules.
