Sure, I’m aging; I’m in my midforties and there are a few more wrinkles now than when I was in my twenties, but when I look in the mirror, I don’t see forty-five. I certainly don’t feel it, whatever forty-five is supposed to feel like, unless it involves feeling more confident, secure, and primed to do more. I’ve always felt this way but never more so than when I hit my forties. I’m wiser. Smarter. More reflective. More than ever, I’m motivated.
This attitude was inspired more than fifteen years ago, when I was fresh to the business and struggling while I searched for my next job. I’d scored a few sitcom gigs here and there and even made a star turn in a television movie, Satan’s School for Girls, opposite Shannen Doherty. But despite a few promising auditions, work had dried up and the devil was on me, stoking my fears and dragging his fingernails through my insecurities. You old, pushing thirty. Who’s going to hire you? my inner voice questioned. I was scared to even contemplate the answer. It was the hit television show The Sopranos, and one of its biggest stars, Edie Falco, who floated me a clue and gave me a crystal ball view into my future. Edie was thirty-six when she starred as Carmela Soprano, the wife of the ruthless but troubled mob boss Tony Soprano and the matriarch of his crime syndicate, and she played the hell out of that part. Saturday night rolled around and anyone who knew so much as my name knew not to call my house while the Sopranos was on because, like everyone else, I was gripped by the story and Edie was downright fascinating—not just because her character leaped from the screen, but also because she had surpassed the shelf life of a Hollywood starlet and still managed to earn the respect and admiration of millions. I read quite a few stories about her career and trajectory—hell, at the height of the show, she was being profiled everywhere—and I finally came to understand that no one gave a damn about her age; we were focused on the work, on her talent. We were genuinely turned out by her God-given ability to spin and dig and morph into a conflicted, gluttonous housewife charged with turning a blind eye to her husband’s murderous empire, all while reaping the benefits of the dirty business she could not stand. Every week, Edie was churning out deliciously complicated performances, and I watched in awe. She was my mustard seed—that tiny bit of faith I needed to keep pushing forward, believing that my dream of being a successful actress would come to pass.
Meryl Streep was a mustard seed, too; around the same time that I was clocking Edie, Meryl gave an interview in which she said she’d thought for sure her career would end the moment she turned forty. But there she was, having lived half a century, and getting roles of a lifetime.
You’re good, I said to myself after reading their stories and considering their work. All it’s going to take is that one right role. You’re just one role away.
Not long after that, John Singleton cast me in Baby Boy.
Frankly, I’m so glad this level of success came for me in my forties because, really, what would I have done with it at age twenty besides getting caught up in all the material things that come with it? I fall on my knees often and thank Jesus Christ that my career went down the way it did.
On the personal front, I do not regret never marrying. I never even felt the pull to have another baby. I made my gynecologist burst into laughter one visit when, after an examination, he questioned whether I would like to try for a daughter. “You have so many eggs here. You could do this easily.”
“I got eggs all day long, huh?” I said, sucking my teeth. “You can take them, honey. Take them for free. I’m done. Shop is closed for business.”
When my son is ready for kids, I’ll be happy to spoil some grandkids rotten. But there will be no more babies this way.
Being a single mother slowed down my clock and gave me a heightened sense of who could be worked with and who needed to be sent packing, that much I know. That was definitely one of the many perks of having my son; rather than focusing on finding a man so that I could have a baby, I could take my time, examine those frogs under the light, find the warts, and know, for sure, that it wasn’t right before I settled in and wasted precious time. This I appreciated most of all.