The Actor's Side: Tracee Ellis Ross
Actress and comedian Tracee Ellis Ross sits down with Pete Hammond for The Actor’s Side interview segment of Deadline. The two talk about Tracee’s impression of the end of her long-running sitcom Blackish, her experience writing and producing for Black-ish, her mother’s view on Tracee’s musical debut on High Note, and future projects Tracee has planned.
“I have such deep appreciation for how Black-ish has ended, and I leave with so much joy and pride. I really have the opportunity to say, from an educated place, this is a beautiful end.”
Pete opens the conversation by mentioning that while Black-ish had a finale, Tracee’s other show Girlfriends didn’t have a proper ending. Tracee goes on to explain that the show just faded away after a while. The last episode of Girlfriends was shot during the writer’s strike of 2008, and, originally, the show had thirteen more episodes scheduled that never came to be. Tracee got to direct the final episode as her directorial debut, but she admits that the experience was surreal.
Pete notes that people not only get to watch Black-ish on network television, but they can now watch the show from start to finish on streaming service like Hulu. He claims the show will live on through the service where people will keep discovering it. Tracee agrees with Pete, stating that shows being on streaming services is good since it permits shows like Girlfriends to be discovered more easily. Tracee recollects a time when her 12-year-old nephew watched the Oscars recently. Her nephew questioned the difference between television shows and movies. Tracee reasons his confusion is due to not knowing the difference in production between network television and films from being raised in a generation with easily accessible content through portable devices.
“There is something really special about how streaming has changed both how we create television and also how we watch television, and the fact that you can have access to something long after it’s done.”
While admitting the success of streaming services, Pete feels that being able to stream takes the sting out of a show like Black-ish. He claims that the show was important for network television to have, but now Black-ish isn’t exclusively on television anymore. Tracee believes that the era of primetime television shows is ending due to the change in the relationship audience’s have with network television. She relates the eventual lack of primetime shows to the current shortage of audience shows; they still exist but in very low numbers.
Back to the discussion on the finale of Black-ish, Pete asks Tracee where she got the idea to write for an episode symbolizing change on the last season of the show. Tracee claims she had pitched the topic at the beginning of the final season, and the scripts folded well within the story arc. She wanted to bring attention to perimenopause by having her character experience it. Tracee emphasized how perimenopause is similar to puberty for adults when the body goes through a major, rapid change. She also desired the episode to be focused on how parents experience change after all their children have left the house.
I always thought I had a little bit of a voice, but I was too scared to try it. And this [High Note] just seemed like the perfect opportunity to walk through that fear.”
Pete then brings up the film High Note, which was Tracee’s singing debut, which came out during the early stages of the pandemic. Tracee notes that High Note was the second film in the U.S. to go streaming for theatrical release. She believes that in one sense, the movie release was anticlimactic and sort of a bummer for it not to be in theaters. However, Tracee thinks more people got to see the movie due to it being streamed, reasoning that people who would unexpectedly have not gone to the theater ended up watching it. Tracee claims she had fun making High Note and loved the experience of walking toward her fear of failure by singing. Pete notes that Tracee’s mother is singer Diana Ross and speculates that Tracee seems to be somewhat following in Diana’s footsteps with her performance on High Note.
“I was sort of born a bit of a big planet. I was always the very silly child kicked out of class for making everybody laugh. Loved making people laugh and I loved performing. I think I’m a performer at heart.”
Continuing the topic of Tracee’s mother, Diana, Pete asks if Diana was Tracee’s inspiration to get into the entertainment business. Tracee denies this was the case but admits that the industry is a world she knows, thanks to her mother. None of her siblings leaned into entertainment, and Tracee was shy as a child. Tracee tells how she once competed in her high school’s talent show by singing. Unfortunately, she started on too high of a note, her voice cracked, and she started crying. Tracee claims that being on stage was not her thing until she started modeling in late high school. She soon became more comfortable standing in front of a camera, and she remembers that it was then her mother commented on how her personality was finally starting to surface.
The interview ends when Pete asks how Tracee feels about being a producer. She believes it is important for her to have the authority as a producer, especially at this point in her career. Now that Tracee has a production deal with ABC and three productions in progress, she feels that her personality and interest lend themselves to producing. She loves putting teams together and choosing stories that continue to expand the viewer’s understanding of one another.