State of Affairs star Alfre Woodard shares her private passion for politics in the real world

STATE of Affairs star Alfre Woodard gets to play the American President in a new TV drama, and she reveals where she got her passion for politics.

THE LAST WORD … WITH STATE OF AFFAIRS STAR ALFRE WOODARD

“I’VE spent three decades of my life in politics, so I jumped at the chance to do State Of Affairs.”

“I’ve always been interested in politics, I was raised that way. When we were growing up my parents would go door to door in the neighbourhood and surrounding neighbourhoods and knock to make sure people were registered to vote.

You’d ask them questions, make sure they’d get to the polls. I started doing that with my parents when I was 10 years old.

I grew up in a very particular time of man in the States. When I was a young teenager, the civil rights movement was in full swing.

Katherine Heigl: Things got really porny on State Of Affairs

Women’s rights were starting to kick off and the gay movement happened after that. It was an exact point of time in American life when the status quo wouldn’t hold anymore.

People were very active and (politics) was a part of life.

I laugh because it’s true, but I used to stand outside the White House chanting and shouting when I was 17. Then, after being in college, I went to going inside the chambers to try and lobby people to change their minds.

I learnt to work on policy. I found those people that I could believe in and wanted to work on their issues and campaigns. I’ve worked on political campaigns for the past 25 years and now I’m closely aligned with this president (Obama).

Playing the President ... Alfre Woodard in State Of Affairs. Picture: Supplied

We do a lot of things, cultural ambassadorships with film and other things plus I spend a lot of time in failing schools around the country integrating arts into the curriculum. I work on human rights issues internationally and in the States as well.

I would do all of this even if I wasn’t an actor. If I was baking bread for a living, I would figure out a way that my product could somehow be put into service.

We earn wages to pay our rent and buy our food. But there is a price that we owe as a member of the world community that you think, ‘What am I going to put into the pot here?’ Because that’s where we pay rent to be a human being.

Powerful role ... Alfre Woodard and Katherine Heigl in State Of Affairs. Picture: Supplied

I’ve raised my two children (Mavis, 23, and Duncan, 21) to have a very strong sense of the world and responsibility so they have a full and rounded life. We travel a lot and one of their first big trips was to South Africa where I started the non-profit Artists For A New South Africa about 22 years ago.

My daughter is a professional equestrian and when she wanted to take a gap year I told her, ‘Well for at least two months in that year I want you to work somewhere in the world but it can’t be with animals or horses, it has to be with humans.’ She spun on me and said, ‘I’m not like you Mom. I care about people in the world but I don’t want to hug them all.’

It made me laugh but it made me feel good that my daughter is not a bratty teenager, she’s a beautiful, very strong-willed girl. I love that my kids have been exposed to this life but they are who they are and who they have to be.”

STATE OF AFFAIRS

THURSDAY, 9PM, SEVEN