Alfre Woodard Has Recipe For Success

Just in time for the holidays, an amazing film about family, feuds and food is hitting the theaters. Gurinder Chadha's "What's Cooking?" profiles four very different Los Angeles families as they prepare for Thanksgiving.

With more than 40 speaking parts, the cast is stellar: Alfre Woodard, Joan Chen, Lainie Kazan, Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick and Julianna Margulies, to name a few.

This month, we'll be visiting with a few of the film's outstanding women who also will share their characters' favorite Thanksgiving recipes.

First up is Woodard, who stars as an uptight, upper-middle-class woman who is trying desperately to keep her family together and plan the perfect Thanksgiving dinner. Here's Woodard's character's special recipe:

All About Alfre
Woodard lays her head on the table and good-naturedly wails, "I'm sooooooo tired."

Not only is the multiple Emmy-winning star in full production for a new feature, she's also been traveling the country rallying the troops for presidential hopeful Al Gore. So it's no wonder that she's feeling a bit overwhelmed.

But despite her self-proclaimed fatigue, Woodard is still eager to talk about the release of her latest film, "What's Cooking?"

Laughing, she lifts her head and sits up. Woodard's radiant smile reveals the woman whom we have come to know as one of America's premier actresses.

For a moment, my mind wanders back to 1986, the first time I saw the Academy Award-nominated ("Cross Creek") Woodard on screen. It was the first episode of "LA Law" and she was playing a chronically ill woman named Adrian Moore.

Moore had been brutally raped, and the defense attorneys were dragging out the proceedings in hopes that she would die before the end of the trial.

I was mesmerized. So was everyone else watching. Woodard won an Emmy Award for her performance.

It was Woodard's second Emmy win. Her first came from a guest role on NBC's acclaimed series "Hill Street Blues" in 1984. Her third would come with perhaps her most celebrated role in the 1997 HBO original movie "Miss Evers' Boys." She would also win a Golden Globe, an ACE Award and a SAG Award for best actress for her role as Eunice Evers.

Now she tackles yet another terrific role: Audrey Williams in Chadha's Trimark film "What's Cooking?"

It's a role that she tells me she "jumped at the chance" to play.

"This (script) was sent to me for a reason," she says.

A ... My Name Is Audrey.
"When I read Audrey, (the) first thing I loved about her was that she was the class of woman I grew up with," Woodard tells me, describing her upper-middle-class character.

"As an actor of color ... people don't see us as anything other than whatever makes them comfortable. And what makes people comfortable is to see black people struggling along the bottom of the rung."

Woodard stops for a beat, then continues: "They don't want to know that people live near the top of the rung. (African-Americans) still struggle, they struggle just like everybody else -- that's part of life."

One struggle for Williams is her attempt to keep her world and her family together by incessant planning. Woodard says that she cherished that aspect of the character.

"I loved being tightly wound, where everything depended on how the table was laid," she tells me.

Is Woodard like her character in this respect?

Not really.

"I am an organizational expert. I can really take care of a situation," she says.

And she says that she is more "practical" than Williams.

"I have scooped up many cakes off the floor and then renamed it," she jokes.

POV

Over the years, Woodard has arguably created some of the most richly defined characters ever for an actress in either television or film.

"Everybody is a real human being," Woodard says of her characters. "No matter if they're sitting in a suit over at an oil company, whether they're up a pole for water and power, whether they're a teacher sitting listening to kids, even if a certain picture's been painted of them in a script. No matter what they have to do, or what has happened to them, they are just a human in these particular circumstances. What you do is find that reality.

"Nobody believes they're a bad guy. Nobody says, 'I'm going to create mayhem.' Everybody is looking out from their eyes, thinking from their point of view. So you start from knowing that everybody is trying to do well, trying to do right."

Woodard says this acting philosophy can also be found in director-writer Chadha's approach to "What's Cooking?"

Thanksgiving Feast
"It's so thorough; it's a slice of real life," Woodard says of the film.

"I think what it does is that it shows L.A. as it really is."

"What's Cooking?" profiles four families individually planning and celebrating Thanksgiving: Jewish, African-American, Asian and Latino. The story follows different storylines but eventually weaves the families tighter than they could ever imagine.

Woodard says that the diverse cast is important, but is secondary to the characters being real people.

"It's not just the sake of putting color there. It's seeing people there," she says. "(Hollywood) is constantly making movies that exclude and deny the fact of how we all see each other every day. It's like watching a color TV set with the tint off."

Woodard also notes that, despite Los Angeles being the film's backdrop, the universal appeal is undeniable.

"It's as much there as what people bring to it, what they're going to see in it," she tells me.

"I think it will open a lot of people's eyes. It might open their eyes about their own communities."

She says that one theme that will hit close to home is our shared experience of family holidays.

Woodard says that although holidays are often joyous occasions, because we often see our families as places where we can be ourselves, "secrets and bombshells" also tend to emerge.

"Why have holidays if you're not going to have some drama?" she asks.

St. Nowhere?
"I'm nowhere near where I would like to be," Woodard says of her success.

But Woodard does not see her career in terms of fame and fortune. She looks at the work.

"I've never done a picture that was what I wanted to do. I have never done that. I didn't go into the business just to find work," she says

But Woodard is not bitter. She understands the game and the stakes.

"I have been blessed, I've had an incredible time as an actor, (but) I've never had carte blanche, some money, to do an idea. I'm always dressing up other people's ideas," she tells me. "I've made it a point to decide and to choose, but I'm choosing out of what has come to me.

"Until I've done that, I can say that I have not given to the public what I have intended to give as an actor. But I also realize I may never get to do that. Just as some people will never get to do what I've done."

Woodard's voice is steady when she says, "You play the hand you're dealt in a way that doesn't dishonor who you are."

The Big Scoop

Al Gored Up: Mega celebs showed up for Al Gore when he bolstered the crowd in Los Angeles last week. Cher, Whoopi Goldberg, Ed Begley Jr., Rob Reiner and Martin Sheen (to name just a few) all turned out for the presidential hopeful. Reiner said that there were three reasons to vote for Al Gore: the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court. The next president will most likely appoint Supreme Court justices and could determine the law of the land for decades to come.

The Piano Man: Last week, the great Steve Allen died at the age of 78. The amazing Allen will be sorely missed, but his contribution to the world of entertainment will never be forgotten. Many wonderful anecdotes about Allen's long career have been passed around over the last few days. Here's one that I bet you haven't heard:

About 10 years ago, Allen visited the KCBS-TV (formerly KNXT) studios in Los Angeles to tape a public-service announcement. The PSA called for him to play the piano. The only piano that the studio had sounded fine, but looked terrible. It was so beaten up, the crew had used electric tape to keep it together. On air, however, it looked fine. The crew apologized to Allen for the condition of the piano when he arrived. Instead of being upset, Allen's eyes lit up and he asked if he could have the piano after they were finished using it for the day. Turns out that Allen got famous on that very piano decades earlier when he had his radio show at KNX Radio, which is in the same Columbia Square building. The general manager of the television station gave it away willingly. It's rumored that Allen had that piano fine-tuned, restored, and even had a special addition in his home to house it.

Angels In America: Advertising is not just an American pastime, but we do seem to do it the best. So when mobile phone giant Nokia reviewed the blockbuster hit "Charlie's Angels" movie, it was rumored to have been a little hung up on the fact that you could never tell that the Angels used only Nokia phones. The rumor is that actress Drew Barrymore headed back for a second take for the scene where she's on the phone in bed to give Nokia its much paid-for closeup.

Diller Dally" I'm told that Phyllis Diller is a frequent customer at Aaron Brothers Art and Framing Store in Los Angeles. She takes her artwork there to frame, and she also takes her time. Diller will reportedly spend literally hours there (up to four hours, I'm told), talking about how to frame her pieces just right. The staff says that Diller is so particular that it sometimes drives them nuts. That is, until she laughs. Her famous cackle seems to cheer everyone up and makes it all worthwhile.

Next Column:

• Meet Joan Chen. She directed "Autumn in New York," but is also famous for her acting. Remember her as the Empress in the Academy Award-winning picture "The Last Emperor?"

• Coming Up: Gordon Parks photography, music and poetry come to life this month in an HBO documentary produced by Denzel Washington. I sat down with the 88-year-old Parks to talk about his extraordinary and inspiring life.

• Past On The Set columns.

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