ruby dee - it’s been a long time coming …
Actress, Activist
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Screen legend is almost too quaint a term to describe Ruby Dee. She’s a consummate actress, one of the most revered performers of her generation (or any other), author, Grammy-winner and activist. Finally, the beloved Dee has earned Hollywood’s highest acting honor, an Academy Award nomination for her powerful performance as Mama Lucas in Ridley Scott’s epic American Gangster. “It’s been very exciting,” proclaims the actress.
Dee is excited about the changes she’s witnessed in the industry in recent years, with many prominent African American actors being nominated and winning Oscars®. “I feel that there’s something changing in the industry — and in the world, really.”
“We’re beginning to realize that we really are one world — we [must] relate to each other,” continues Dee. That love for humanity and the human spirit is at the very core of Ruby Dee as an actress. Regardless of the role, she finds a way to tap into that unifying spirit and relate to it. “I’m learning how to tune into the specifics of spirit — this personality,” she reveals. “That’s the basis of the business — how well you can open yourself up to other people and other places. In a sense, you [must] become other people.”
Being nominated for a role that was so close to home for the Harlem-born Dee is the proverbial cherry-on-top. “I grew up in Harlem and I had already worked with Denzel [Washington], and had a sense of his capabilities as an actor,” explains Dee. “Some of the very streets that I grew up in were in the film. I come from there, and it’s still with me … Harlem is still with me.” –todd williams
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