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02:59All right.
03:02Those first two panels were incredible.
03:05Anybody else feeling hungry?
03:07I am.
03:08I just downed a bag of chips too.
03:10All right.
03:11It is time now.
03:13You guys are in the right place at the right time because only Hulu and Disney could bring
03:17together so many of our favorite leading ladies on one stage today.
03:24All right.
03:25So Black Stories always presents leading ladies.
03:28And let me tell you, this one is a once-in-a-lifetime conversation that we're about to have.
03:33Please join me in celebrating our amazing group of panelists.
03:38On behalf of Hulu though, we would like to give each of these amazing actresses flowers, giving
03:44them their flowers now, as a token of appreciation for their portrayal of groundbreaking characters
03:49and for their contributions to our community and the industry at large.
03:54So first up, from ABC's hit show, Grey's Anatomy, Chandra Wilson.
04:00Thank you for inspiring so many future doctors, for speaking life into me backstage.
04:22Yes, for your portrayal of a black chief of surgery and the longest running scripted primetime
04:29show on ABC.
04:30Yes.
04:32Talk, lady.
04:33Talk.
04:35I love it.
04:37Okay.
04:38Next up, from FX's upcoming series, Justified City Primeval, Ingenue Ellis.
04:45Through your characters, you have explored self-liberation in sci-fi, the importance of
04:52taking up space, taking up space as a black woman within dramas and so much more.
04:57Thank you for putting your all into each of these characters that we have gotten to enjoy.
05:09All right.
05:10From Showtime's The Shy, Yolanda Ross.
05:13Yes.
05:14Thank you for inspiring the world with your vulnerable and compelling portrayal of the
05:26ultimate struggles of breast cancer, being a single mother, and finding love again.
05:33Thank you for being a young powerhouse, captivating viewers in fan favorite scenes of Cruel Summer and Little Fires Everywhere.
06:01Where your performances inspire a generation of little black girls across the globe.
06:07Thank you, Lexi.
06:12From ABC's The Wonder Years, Miss Sae Khan Sengblo, thank you for showcasing what it means to be a confident mom who puts her family first,
06:26no matter what, with warmth, and grace, and that voice you share with us all, you shine so brightly on our screens.
06:33All right now, from ABC's Abbott Elementary, Miss Cheryl Lee Ralph.
06:48Thank you for being the gift that keeps on giving from beloved mom to educator.
07:03You have been our matriarch and a true class act in the industry.
07:09Oh, and you look good.
07:10All right, give it up one more time for our leading ladies.
07:16All right, give it up one more time for our leading ladies.
07:23Get it all out!
07:33Oh my gosh, it is such an honor to be up here with all of you ladies.
07:49Okay, so if you look at the breadth of shows on Hulu's Black Story Always hubs, from contemporary to classics,
07:56you'll see the growth and evolution of black female characters on the screen.
08:00Let's talk about how your characters, Dr. Miranda Bailey, Lillian Williams on The Wonder Years, Jada on The Shy, Barbara Howard,
08:08how it may have provided the opportunity for viewers to see black women grow and evolve as multi-dimensional characters.
08:15Chandra, let's start with you.
08:17Yes, hey, everybody. Hey, Essence, hey.
08:21Yeah, actually, I think the thing that I appreciate most about being able to play Miranda Bailey for all these years for you guys
08:28is that you've been able to see a woman who started off with ambition and you got to see her in real time achieve the goal that she set for herself
08:40and then have time to come up with some new ones afterwards.
08:43Yes.
08:44So that's been really important and it's been really important to all the children that are adults now that have seen this face on television
08:54and normalized this face and then said, oh, I can go to medical school because I've seen this face in this position on television.
09:05So thank you guys for catching on to that and then taking it and running with it.
09:10Yes.
09:11Sakan?
09:12Oh, man. First of all, hello, Essence.
09:16I'm so happy to be here.
09:18Being able to play Lillian Williams on The Wonder Years and represent the black family, to be able to show an intact black family where the mother and the father are both present and loving their children,
09:33focusing on their children, focusing on their children's education and on all the things that happen in life. Just living. I think it's just a direct example of how life happens.
09:44You got to go to work. You got to do all the important things, but you got to do the little things, too, and still find romance and still take care of your laundry.
09:53We show a little bit of everything, but I think that's what that's what's important about being on The Wonder Years and being able to present that the intact black family.
10:03The black family, the nuance of the black experience. Yolanda, how about for you?
10:10For me, it's important. Wait, is that? Can you hear me? Can y'all hear me?
10:14Bring it tight. Bring it tight.
10:16All right. All right. All right. All right.
10:19For me, playing Jada all these years for y'all, it's been so important because to show a black woman who has a child, she's not in a relationship,
10:32what black women go through because it's not easy. We hold it down. That's what I feel Jada has shown the world that black women hold it down for everybody.
10:45And we have our own needs and watching her grow, watching her get through things, watching her go through health battles.
10:55It was so amazing to be able to portray that because you don't always get to see us in those ways, go through those kinds of things that are so important,
11:05where black women getting breast cancer. We know it's out there. It happens to so many of us. So many of us die and are not diagnosed right away.
11:15To see somebody go through it, you are not alone. So that alone meant so much to me.
11:22Miss Cheryl.
11:25The joy, the joy that I receive being able to give life to Barbara Howard. And the thank you. Thank you. And the fact that Abbott Elementary created by young Quinta Brunson.
11:48Quinta Brunson is shining the light on education and educators in a way where they are not the butt of the joke, but they are the heart of the show.
12:06And I'm sure in this hall today, there are hundreds of Barbara Howards walking through here. That teacher that you will never, ever forget. Because when you didn't believe in yourself, she believed in you.
12:25So for all of the Barbara Howards sitting out there and the future Barbara Howards, you have just got to know how much we love and appreciate what you do every day. And it is a sacrifice. And I know it from the character that I play. Barbara Howard will live forever on Abbott Elementary. Amen.
12:52Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, Lexi and Anjanu, I want to bring you guys in because you occupy some similar spaces in your roles on Cruel Summer and Justified City Primeval. How do you mentally and physically prepare for your performances, especially in shows that give you the opportunity to really portray the connection between the black experience and the world at large? Anjanu, I'll start with you.
13:18Well, I play a woman named Carolyn Wilder, and she's a defense attorney from Detroit, Michigan. And Justified was a world, a culture that was already established before for years. It was been on television for six years before they did this series.
13:37And so for me, one of the things that I have had to say in this assert in this show is that I'm not going to, I'll put it like this, even when she's lying down, she's standing up.
13:50She's standing up. Because so many times black women play these roles where they are the love interest or the romantic interest and they lose themselves. And I refuse to do that. And I think when we are in these shows that really honestly focus white life, that we constantly have to assert our singularity as black women. And that's what I come to work every day doing.
14:14Yes. Yeah. Lexi. So I play Isabella LaRue on Full Summer and Isabella is an incredibly complex character. As a young black artist, I feel like first of all, the first step when it comes to preparation for a role is being very deliberate about the role that I choose.
14:33Because I do know that my representation, me being on screen, when young black girls see me, they also see themselves. And so I want to make sure that, you know, I believe that what we do as artists is a contact sport.
14:45I want people to walk away when they view my work feeling mentally or physically or emotionally moved, especially young black girls. And so every step of the way, I want to make sure that I'm deliberately doing that when it comes to bringing my characters to life and when it comes to choosing them.
15:00Amen. Okay. Let's talk about how platforms like Hulu, Onyx Collective, and the larger industry can further promote and support the inclusion of and success of black women, not only in front of the camera, but behind the camera. Chandra, I want to start with you.
15:20Well, so how many folks out here feel like there was like a wave and everybody was interested in diversity and everybody was interested and then people got tired and now people are like, look, we did that and moving on.
15:39So we're in the moving on part of it. What has always been interesting to me about Grey's is that we were a show that started by showing you America.
15:55We just showed you what we look like and what we do and we weren't trying to put a label on it and we weren't trying to shove anything down anybody's throat.
16:05When people first fell in love with Grey's, they fell in love with the fact that they felt at home when they were watching it and they knew that doctor and they knew that person.
16:15They knew that person. They knew that patient. That's something that their mother went through. It's about familiarity. When you're familiar with people and people that don't look like you and you realize how much you have in common, then you don't have to label things all the time.
16:31It's like, thank God for the labels because we have to uplift things. But I'm just trying to show you and anybody that doesn't look like us that look, we're all related up in here somewhere and we can take the best and the worst of us.
16:49Right. This whole big mix and blend and make a world where we tolerate each other, even if we don't understand everything.
16:58I think Grace has historically been able to do that and ABC has given us space to be able to continue to, they've never asked us to change the way we tell story and I appreciate them for that.
17:14Yolanda, what do you think? How can these platforms continue to promote the inclusion and success of black women in front of and behind the camera?
17:22I feel, um, you know, these platforms and then the people that put out the shows on these platforms, like, you know, Lena is who put our show out and having black directors, you know, black show runners, it makes a difference.
17:38So that the, you know, the stories are, they're coming from home, you know, so the specificity is there and we recognize that.
17:47I think it's very important to have these platforms because it's like Chandra said, that, you know, there's that time, there's that wave and then it's like, oh, well, we did that.
17:55Yeah.
17:56Uh-huh. Thank you.
17:58It's real. It's real.
17:59It's very real.
18:00I really hope that in this time, people don't forget, and I'm so happy that we have ABC that sees it, that an affirmative action is always necessary when it comes to us in all of our shapes and sizes and what we do in front of the camera, behind the camera.
18:22Do not let us go because some folks get weary that some of us know that we must stay woke, stay, come on now, stay aware.
18:35We must wake up because like it or not, we are here, we are going to stay, and we're happy that we're on a station that right now is able to say,
18:48come on through the many doors that we have under this umbrella. Let us not forget we need an affirmative action. Thank you.
19:01Amen. All right, we are out of time. We have gotten to celebrate these leading ladies. We have given them their flowers, but it's time to all get in on a photo op. Yes.
19:14Anjanelle, we need to take a selfie, all of us. Audience two.
19:18Say, Anjanelle. Anjanelle.
19:20Thank you so much for having us. This was amazing.
19:22Thank you for being here.
19:23So wonderful to see all you beautiful faces.
19:25Okay, you guys get-
19:26You guys get-
19:30So wonderful, pal.
19:32Thanks for doing you.
19:33Cheers.
19:34Bye.
19:36Bye.
19:50What you going to do right now is time to remove the Pluto.
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