During Shadow And Act’s most recent Locked Down With __ live Facebook Q&A, actress and producer Erika Alexander talked about several topics, including Congressman John Lewis (the subject of the documentary Good Trouble, which she is a producer of), responding to David Schwimmer about Friends and Living Single, and the importance of holding one’s head up, both literally and figuratively.
Lewis, who is battling cancer, is said to be in good spirits, according to Alexander.
“He’s doing wonderfully,” she said. “He’s doing the treatments, and he’s gaining strength every day and he’s built to last and God bless him.”
She also brought up a story from her own medical and emotional past–surviving a miscarriage and how it affected her skin as well as her self-esteem.
“I had been previously married and had a miscarriage. After the miscarriage, my skin went [wild] for years. I had adult acne and cysts all over…and I was putting my head down on set and acting through my eyebrows,” she said. “I did that a little bit with Cousin Pam–Bill Cosby came to me one day and pulled up my head and said, ‘I’m paying for all of this…put your head up.’ It was a very classy move, but…I didn’t know I was doing that.”
When she realized her acne was causing her to shrink into herself again, she said she had to talk herself out of it.
“I had to say ‘No Erika, you are more than those pimples. You are more than your face. Perform,'” she said.
Alexander also explained how her tweet to David Scwhimmer regarding the debt Friends owes to Living Single came about.
“I was just at Sundance at the time and my business partner saw and she said, ‘You have to answer this,'” she said. She sent the tweet, and by the time she had landed after her trip from Sundance, “a whole conversation had erupted around ‘I told you Living Single was the first!'”
“I don’t think the brother knew what was coming at him, and frankly, I didn’t know,” she said of Schwimmer, whom she called a “kind dude.”
Alexander said Shadow And Act’s Brooke Obie told her why people became so protective of Living Single online–because of the feeling of there needing to be a reckoning of Black art being respected and honored, something Alexander mentioned in her Zora article about the controversy.
“There’s a lot of [casts of shows]–not just Living Single–that…had to take a lot and we couldn’t talk about. It’s not just about the end of your job–there’s no recourse.” The internet, she said, has allowed people to have a dialogue with the actors from those shows, which allows their stories to be told.
“I didn’t mean no harm to the brother…but he needed to know,” she said.
READ MORE:
Erika Alexander Posts Essay About ‘Living Single’ And The White Privilege Behind ‘Friends’
David Schwimmer Responds To Erika Alexander, Says He Meant ‘No Disrespect’
Erika Alexander Schools David Schwimmer After He Suggests An All-Black ‘Friends’ Reboot
John Lewis Documentary From CNN Films And Erika Alexander’s Color Farm Media Is On The Way
Photo: Getty
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