Sheryl Lee Ralph Reveals A Producer Once Fired Her For Not Being ‘Black Enough’

etcanada.com:

Sheryl Lee Ralph is addressing the discrimination she’s faced in the entertainment business. The “Abbott Elementary” actress spoke with People about a particularly painful memory from a TV pilot she was cast in years ago.

As an actress who was trying to make it in 1980s Hollywood, she said the landscape was very difficult to navigate. “People’s thinking was not very inclusive.

You [had] directors who were still trying to tell you how to be Black,” she said. READ MORE: Quinta Brunson Gets Surprised By Teacher She Named ‘Abbott Elementary’ After “I was fired from a pilot because the producer told me I was ‘not Black enough,'” she recalled. “Those were his words.

It was horrible. I can still remember the way I felt.” The incident wasn’t an isolated experience, as she faced a casting director who questioned her screen viability playing opposite someone like Tom Cruise. “[I] had a memorable audition with a big casting director who looked at me and said, ‘Everybody knows you’re a beautiful, talented, Black girl.