Adrienne Warren opens up about shining light on women's stories with Women of the Movement , Tina
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When it comes to bringing icons to life, Adrienne Warren is simply the best.
The star, 34, won a 2020 Tony for her lead role in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. And this winter, she plays Mamie Till-Mobley, mother of Emmett Till, in the ABC limited series Women of the Movement.
Warren didn't intend to build a career portraying historical figures, but she welcomes it. "I try to live a purpose-driven life, and if that means helping share the stories of our ancestors and bringing light to stories that have been in darkness, I am happy to be a vessel for that," she tells EW.
Warren — who started singing as a toddler, harmonizing with her father — initially dreamed of being a basketball star until her smaller stature nudged her into performing.
Currently filming The Woman King with Viola Davis, Warren hopes to share her own music next ... and move into producing. She says, "If you can do Broadway, you can do anything."
But first, she'll lead six nights of the limited series — Women of the Movement, as unlikely civil rights hero, Mamie Till-Mobley — premiering tonight on ABC. We called up Warren to learn more about tackling Tina and Mamie in the same year, the two women's similarities and differences, and how the racial reckoning of 2021 informed her work.
ABC/James Van Evers
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What is the biggest challenge of playing a real person and public figure? And was it different for Tina versus Mamie?
ADRIENNE WARREN: Everything about it because it does not leave that much room for adaptation. As a storyteller, I do everything I possibly can to get to the root and the foundation of who these individuals are. And it's who these people are, not necessarily who people perceive them to be. That's a very different thing. It's not who I perceive them to be, but it's who are they as human beings. Sometimes it takes a physical transformation, which is also very taxing on my body. It is a responsibility that I don't take lightly. Every part of it is a challenge, but it's definitely a challenge that I am happy to take on.
For both Tina and Mamie, was there something in each of those cases that really unlocked who they were for you?
Tina was very different from Mamie. Tina is a performer and Mamie's not. Mamie is a mother who was in a tragic situation, which led her to unusual circumstances in which she had to become a fighter. She was living her life as a mother just trying to take care of her son, which is already a fight in itself. The similarities are, they are believers in love and have a lot of faith. They are both fighters in their individual ways — because they had to be, not necessarily because they wanted to be, which I think is important. Especially when you're bringing light to stories, specifically, about Black women. Black women are often seen as, "Oh, they're warriors or fighters and they're so resilient." But there are many times where people don't want to be in those situations, but they have to rise to the occasion because of their circumstances. And that is one thing that is very similar to both of them — they were both forced in situations that had nothing to do with them. With Tina, the domestic violence, and with Mamie, the murder of her son. What we know of them today, it's because of the tragic situation that was actually put upon them.
When Tina first came your way, what was your reaction? Were you scared of it?
I was petrified. Honestly, when I got the script and I was asked to do a table read, I looked at the person who gave me the script and I said, "Sure, what role would you like me to read for?" Because there was no way I thought they were having me read for Tina. I didn't believe in myself and even my dad — my parents are huge Tina Turner fans — and he was like, "I don't know, kid, you can do a lot of things, I don't know if you can do that." Mamie was very similar, and now, at this point, my dad is like, "I don't know what you can't do, okay. You can do anything."
With Tina, you had this very circuitous trajectory — it opened, then Broadway shut down, and then you returned and went on to win a Tony. Did having that pause make the journey more poignant or bittersweet?
All those things. I've always been a strong believer in everything happens for a reason. Obviously, the pandemic happened. It's been such a horrible and challenging time for all of us — every single person on this planet. I wish those were not the circumstances. But I will say, in that time, I was able to heal and grow and hear myself think. I desperately needed that because I'd been in a Tina tunnel for a very long time, so giving me that time and that space actually allowed me to do Women of the Movement, which I did not expect to come across my desk in that time. It made the Tina journey a bit more victorious. The producers gave me the opportunity to come back and close this chapter in my life — and it allowed me to come back in a way that I needed, which is with a bit more joy in my heart, and for my body to be a bit more healed. To have a bit more fun and less pressure. I was able to come back and just have fun, which is what I really needed in that journey for myself.
When you won the Tony Award, what was going through your head at that moment?
I somewhat blacked out. They called my name, I don't think I hugged my mom. I just was like, "Get on stage, take your mask off, make sure your make-up isn't all over the face," and I wanted to say what I wanted to say. I was very shocked when there was a standing ovation. It was my second Tony nomination, my first Tony, and no one stands up when you win. I was very shocked at the love from our community. The energy in the room was so supportive. I was completely overcome by emotion and somewhat relieved because it had been such a long journey and I don't know another role where someone has been asked to do the things that I have been asked to do in that role. It's hard because I love theater so much and now I need a bit of a break.
With Women of the Movement, you're portraying Emmett Till's mother. This series is about her integral role in the Civil Rights movement. Most people at least know the name Emmett Till, but probably not the details of Mamie's story. How much did you know about her going in?
I didn't know enough. It was actually really sad to know that when we hear about these horrible tragedies when one of our young men are taken from this world, you think of them as the victim. But I didn't know anything about who Emmett Till was; I didn't know anything about his family. I knew Mamie, but I didn't know enough about her. I knew she made that unbelievably difficult decision to put her pain on the world stage by choosing to have an open casket. I didn't even think of the nuances of that. I didn't even think of like, "How did she come to that decision?" You're so unbelievably debilitated by the image of his brutalized body that it doesn't allow you to even go to the depths of "How did this image even come to be in front of me?"
I didn't know how young she was. I didn't know she was 33 years old. Often we look at our heroes, specifically heroes in social movements, and we see a lot of pictures of our heroes in black and white. We think that they're so much older than us, they're so much wiser — when, in fact, in the 50s and 60s, they were us. Having those moments of "Oh, this is a woman who was my age when I portrayed her in the series." What is that like to actually humanize the person in that way and allow yourself to not see them as a Black woman making this decision about her Black son that was murdered by white men — but rather, a woman who happens to be Black, whose son was and the love of her life was taken from her.
Why do you think our stories about the Civil Rights movement are often so male dominated and do you feel like this at least moves the needle a little bit in terms of correcting the record?
Man, I mean, the patriarchy is real. It's the way our society has been run forever. What better way to keep it that way but to suppress the stories of impeccably strong, intelligent, courageous women? We are a society of erasure, unfortunately, and I am really, really glad that content-wise, artistically, you're seeing those tables turn. You're seeing more stories of women. I'm grateful that Women of the Movement can be a part of that narrative as well.
Did it become more difficult to be telling this story in the midst of everything that was happening last year in terms of the George Floyd murder and our ensuing national conversation about racism?
It actually was right on time. Because we realized that we weren't telling a period piece. This was an event that happened in the 1950s and 60s, but this wasn't a period piece. It's still happening today. If anything, it reaffirmed what we were doing. It reaffirmed the gravity and the importance of the education of what we were doing. It really rallied us to take care of this story.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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