CCH POUNDER: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
ACU|BIEN presents a series of conversations with leading cultural ambassadors and personalities. In this episode, Gus Franklyn-Bute talks to actor-activist, CCH Pounder.
ACUBIEN INTERVIEWS: CCH Pounder
The global movements for permanent change to institutional racism, discrimination of migrants, and gender equality demand every man, woman, and young adult to pause and reflect as these diseases continue to plague society. These in-human disorders destroy lives and families. Our communities, workplaces, and the very future of our children and our children’s children depend on changes we each make in our thoughts, attitudes, and actions.
Reflecting on my own responsibilities and actions in support of campaigns that are captioned by hashtags like #MeToo, #TimesUp, #ICantBreathe, and #BlackLivesMatter, I recall an interview I conducted with CCH Pounder in London on the eve of the premiere of the movie Home Again (2012). I was profoundly struck by CCH Pounder’s stance as an actor-activist. While hashtags are media-friendly and generate huge digital footprints and likes, I can’t help but think that permanent “change’s gonna come” only when a critical mass of ordinary individuals of all creeds, sex, race, and religion do the less ordinary and become their own version of the actor-activist.
While the rotten practices in the Hollywood film industry ignited the cinder for the #MeToo flame, for CCH Pounder, it is the power of television and its reach into millions of homes and hearts that provide her personal momentum to advocate for change.
“… I played lots of victims. Women who sold their babies for crack. Women whose husbands beat them up… and the reaction on the street of “girl it’s just like that isn’t it … this is too powerful. And people begin to believe in stories and believe in the lack of possibilities and the lack of hope and I decided to change that.”
It was an absolute honor and delight to sit down CCH Pounder during her trip to London for the red carpet premiere of the Home Again the movie. CCH’s comprehensive film and television credits include “Mo’at” in James Cameron’s Avatar with sequels being filmed, The Shield, Bagdad Café, Warehouse 13, Batman: Assault on Arkham and Arkham Underworld, NCIS: New Orleans, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Face/Off, LA: Law, Sons of Anarchy and a whole lot more.
In an absorbing conversation, CCH Pounder talks about her experience in the making of the movie Home Again, which dramatically deals with the plight of deportees who have been returned to Jamaica. She also shared her personal insight into becoming an actor-activist. Born in the Caribbean in Georgetown, Guyana, and educated in England CCH played Dulsay Mooreland, a mother who got so busy working, trying to survive, and providing the best for her son, made a fatal mistake that was pivotal in his demise while he was still in school.
ACU|BIEN INTERVIEWS series also spoke with Tatyana Ali, the American actress and R&B singer (best known for her childhood role as Ashley Banks on the NBC sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). Tatyana Ali talks to Gus Franklyn-Bute about her experience in the making of the movie Home Again and her role as Marva, one of the three lead characters.
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