Acting Up

Cortney Wills weighs in on the 2021 Primetime Emmy nominations and highlights the 37 Black creators who nabbed nods including several Acting Up guests including Aunjanue Ellis, Courtney B. Vance, Amber Ruffin, O. T. Fagbenle, and more.

Cortney Wills sits down with multi-talented actor, director, and producer O. T. Fagbenle to discuss his work on Hulu’s “The Handmaids Tale”, making it into the MCU for “Black Widow” and how he’s prepping to play Barack Obama in Showtime’s upcoming “The First Lady” and what went into creating “Maxxx”.

Cortney Wills sits down with Emmy-nominated actor William Jackson Harper to discuss his riveting portrayal of Royal In Barry Jenkins’ Underground Railroad and his upcoming role as the lead in the second season of HBO max series love life. Anti trans bills to be stopped can be found at: https://freedomforallamericans.org/legislative-tracker/anti-transgender-legislation/ Representative phone numbers...

Black comedians are having a major moment in Hollywood and Cortney Wills sits down with two women who are killing the comedy game. Amber Ruffin dishes details about her groundbreaking show "The Amber Ruffin Show" and Yvonne Orji opens up about the end of "Insecure" and her new book "Bamboozled by Jesus".

The first Black woman to be cast on RHONY discusses her strategy for tackling issues of race on reality TV and how she’s handling micro and macro aggressions from her costars with such composure, being labeled “angry” and the ridiculousness that is Heather Thomson. She also dishes details about why she ended her engagement. Spoiler alert: it’s not what you think!

Cortney Wills sits down with “Big Mouth” writer, Brandon Kyle Goodman to discuss his latest project “The Latrell Show” and his ongoing work as an LGBTQ+ advocate as well as how conversations about acceptance have to start at home. Cortney also weighs in on the end of “POSE” as well as the groundbreaking new season of “Master of None” starring Naomi Ackie and Lena Waithe.

Cortney Wills sits down with Loren Hammonds, VP, Immersive Programming to discuss how Tribeca Film Festival is meeting the moment with the content they curated, a special Juneteenth lineup, and how they prepped for the star-studded, in-person event that will take over NYC from June 9th to June 20th.

Award-winning director Dawn Porter dishes on working with Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry on the new Apple+ series, “The Me You Don’t See” and discusses her upcoming NatGeo documentary, “Tulsa and the Red Summer.”

Cortney Wills sits down with Nicole Beharie, star of Amazon’s star-studded anthology series, ‘Solos’; discusses her beautiful performance in ‘Miss Juneteenth’ and gets real about navigating Hollywood as a Black woman.

Cortney Wills sits down with filmmaker Reggie Lochard to discuss how he battled deeply ingrained mental health stigmas to get the help he needed in real life and why he confronts Black America’s measures of masculinity in his latest project ‘A for Alpha’.

Cortney Wills is joined by ‘Queen Sugar’ star Omar Dorsey to discuss how the hit OWN series handled the pandemic as well as what it took to transform into the iconic James Cleveland for his role in ‘Genius: Aretha’.

Cortney Wills reflects on the impact of Black Panther and is joined by ‘Batwoman’ star Javicia Leslie to discuss how far Hollywood has come in the world of Black superheroes as well as the effect representation in that space has on the LGBTQ+ and Black communities.

Cortney Wills sits down with Devon Franklin, Governor at large for the Academy of motion pictures arts and sciences to discuss this years Oscar noms, how the Academy Is working toward more equity for Black Hollywood and how far they have come since #oscarssowhite.

Cortney Wills sits down with Little Marvin, creator of horror anthology series THEM to take a deep dive into the controversial Amazon Prime show that highlights redlining, white terror, and Black trauma.

Cortney Wills takes a deep dive into the SEAspiracy documentary from Netflix joined by meteorologist Liana Brackett who helps break down why Black folks need to care about climate change.

Cortney Wills examines the effect Hollywood has on Black children and how stories about Black families are represented onscreen with guests Debra Martin Chase, Denene Millner, and Lexi Underwood.

April Ryan joins Cortney Wills to discuss the 2021 NAACP image awards and Aunjanue Ellis and Dr. Holly Carter weigh in on pay inequity for black women in Hollywood.

Cortney Wills offers her take on the 2021 Oscar nominations and reveals the year’s biggest snubs and surprises. She’ll invite listeners to examine what happens when Hollywood highlights musical icons like Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin. She’ll take a deep dive into Nat Geo’s upcoming series ‘Genius: Aretha’ featuring candid conversations with Pulitzer Prize- winning writer and show runner, Suz...

The first episode of Acting Up features an intimate conversation with Kelly Rowland, who has added executive producer to her long list of talents. The longtime friends will discuss how the superstar managed to birth a new baby, a new movie, and a new album during such a tumultuous time and fans will hear how the women in Kelly's life continue to inspire her journey.

Acting Up takes a close look at what Hollywood looks like with TheGrio’s Entertainment Director Cortney Wills. Covering music, TV and film since 2005, pop culture junkie, Cortney Wills guides listeners through a primary source experience with icons, celebrities, actors, producers, directors, and more— all people who are helping to shape how our community is represented on and off the screen. Actin...