Entertainment

Girlfriends Actress Talks Code Switching and Her New Role in “I Am The Night”

THE AFRO — Golden Brooks spent much of her California childhood acting out plays with her neighborhood friends.

Published

8 years ago

January 26, 2019

By Nadine Matthews

Golden Brooks spent much of her California childhood acting out plays with her neighborhood friends. However, acting wasn’t something she aspired to. “I wanted to be Barbara Walters,” she says. “I wanted to interview people.” Perhaps most known for the timeless comedy series Girlfriends in which she co-starred with Tracee Ellis Ross, Jill Marie Jones and Persia White, Brooks is one of the stars of the upcoming TNT series, I Am The Night.

Raised by a divorced mother, Brooks says she is mostly grateful for the way she was brought up. “My Mom worked two jobs to support my brother and I. We struggled but my brother and I were always in private school. My mother always made sure we had the best. She did all she could to keep us busy and exposed to different things.” Not having much left over for toys, Brooks was forced to use her imagination, which helped in her career as an actress.

“Code switching,” she says, was also a big part of her childhood. “I would go to these private schools and assimilate and then when I got back to my block I would be more the neighborhood girl. I learned quickly to navigate both worlds. It was what gave me the knowledge to build my character on Girlfriends.”

I Am The Night is based on Fauna Hodel’s memoir One Day She’ll Darken. In it, Brooks portrays the mixed-race Fauna’s mother Jimmy Lee. When Fauna learns some shocking secrets about her parentage, she sets off on a dark, sometimes terrifying search for her roots. Set in 1960’s Nevada and Los Angeles, it is part mystery, part family drama, part tantalizing film noir.

The relationship between Jimmy Lee and Fauna is complicated and Brooks drew from her experiences with her own mother to create the character. She says, “My mother has much lighter skin than me so there were a lot of things I would do she couldn’t understand. I used some of that for this character’s relationship with her daughter.”

Fauna, though white-passing, has always lived as Black. When she learns more about her family, resentment toward her mother grows and the tension between them escalates to dizzying proportions. Brooks can relate. “I didn’t look like my mom and at 15 you don’t understand why. You think, ‘If I just looked like this, I would have that.’ I went through a lot of that. A lot of that sadness and pain and anger I put into Jimmy Lee.”

Two things happened that began to solidify Brooks’ identity as a teen. “They began bussing kids from South Central Los Angeles and they would tease me that I talked like a white girl. Eventually though, those kids helped me feel more comfortable with myself.” Theater also entered Brooks’ life around that time. She recalls, “I found I felt safe in theater. So I engrossed myself in theater in junior high and high school. I could disappear into the characters and that’s where I felt most comfortable.”

As someone who majored in media representation at UC Berkeley, Brooks has an interesting vantage point from which to judge how Hollywood has evolved. She explains, “I started out on Showtime on a show called Links with Pam Grier and Tim Reid. He actually was doing what Tyler Perry is doing now. Tim had his own soundstage, everything. I’ve seen the exploitation, I’ve played the stereotypes. I remember when the CW was around and it was like what BET is now.”

She shares that she doesn’t encounter the blatant racism that she did even at the beginning of this century. “I used to get, ‘Can you just sass it up a bit? Yes, there was that code and I don’t hear that anymore. In the early 2000s you’d hear comments like that.”

Brooks credits Girlfriends with helping to create the more welcoming environment for Black actresses that exists today. “I can never talk about where we are today,” she states emphatically, “without talking about Girlfriends. It was the springboard for a lot of things. It portrayed four successful African-American women and I think it led to characters like Olivia Pope and the Cookie. We’re now blockbuster sensations. There’s no conversation about ‘Will they be successful?’ or ‘Are they gonna sell overseas?’ Yeah, we do! We stood our ground and things changed. It’s living proof persistence pays off!”

This article originally appeared in The Afro.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

2019 Volkswagen Beetle Final Edition Quick Look

Don't Miss

COMMENTARY: The Debt We Owe Haitians

Oakland Post

1 Comment

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of August 12 – 18, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of August 12 – 18, 2026

Published

14 hours ago

August 15, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Art

Misty Copeland Shapes Ballet’s Tomorrow

THE POSITIVE COMMUNITY — Misty Copeland will curate the 2026 Joyce Ballet Festival, a two-week event in New York City from August 4-16. This role allows her to influence the future of ballet by showcasing a wide range of dancers, choreographers, and companies. The festival will present both established and contemporary works, blending classical traditions with new artistic expressions.

Published

7 days ago

August 9, 2026

bpusa-syndication

Misty Copeland at the 2026 Met Gala, wearing fashion in theme of "Costume Art" Date 4 May 2026, 19:39:21

This summer, Misty Copeland will step into a different kind of spotlight. Instead of taking center stage as a dancer, she will help determine what audiences see onstage as curator of the 2026 Joyce Ballet Festival. Taking place August 4 through August 16 at The Joyce Theater in New York City, the two-week celebration will bring together dancers, choreographers and companies representing a broad spectrum of ballet. The festival gives Copeland an opportunity to share not only her appreciation for ballet’s traditions, but also her vision for its future.

Copeland understands better than most how powerful a ballet stage can be. Her historic career with American Ballet Theatre changed the conversation about representation in one of the world’s most traditional performing arts. When she became the company’s first Black woman to reach the rank of principal dancer, her achievement carried significance far beyond a personal milestone. It gave young dancers of color a new image of what was possible and challenged the industry to reconsider who belonged at the center of ballet.

That history informs the perspective she brings to the festival. Copeland has spent much of her career moving between performance, mentorship, advocacy and storytelling. Her curatorial role allows her to bring those interests together by creating a program that does not treat ballet as a museum piece. Instead, the festival presents dance as an evolving language capable of carrying classical traditions into new cultural and artistic territory.

Audiences will encounter a mixture of established works and contemporary creations during the festival. Classical ballet vocabulary will share space with choreography that pushes dancers toward different physical, emotional and theatrical possibilities. The result is intended to give audiences a broader understanding of the art form while demonstrating that tradition and innovation do not have to be competing forces.

The lineup also provides an opportunity to see dancers from different artistic environments. Performers connected to organizations including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Houston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Complexions Contemporary Ballet are among those represented in the festival. Each company carries its own history and artistic identity, making their participation part of a larger conversation about the many ways ballet can be performed and interpreted.

The presence of Dance Theatre of Harlem is particularly meaningful within the larger story of Copeland’s career and the evolution of Black representation in ballet. Founded during a period when opportunities for Black dancers were severely limited, the company helped demonstrate that excellence and classical training could flourish in a Black cultural environment. Its legacy continues to influence dancers and audiences, making its connection to a festival curated by Copeland especially resonant.

The program also reaches beyond a single definition of contemporary ballet. Choreographers with different backgrounds and artistic philosophies contribute to an evening that can move from recognizable classical structures to works shaped by modern dance, theater, popular culture and new approaches to movement. That diversity reflects a generation of artists who increasingly see ballet not as a rigid vocabulary but as a foundation from which they can explore.

For New York audiences, the festival offers something that is increasingly valuable: the opportunity to experience outstanding dancers in an intimate setting. The Joyce is known for presenting dance in a theater where audiences can see movement and artistry up close. That environment can make a familiar ballet work feel newly personal while allowing experimental pieces to communicate with unusual immediacy.

Copeland’s role as curator also sends a message about the importance of artistic leadership. The people who select performers and choreography help determine which stories receive attention and which artists receive opportunities. By bringing a range of voices into the festival, Copeland is using that responsibility to broaden the conversation around ballet. Her choices can introduce audiences to artists they may not otherwise encounter while encouraging longtime ballet followers to look at the form from a different perspective.

The 2026 Joyce Ballet Festival ultimately arrives at an important moment for the art form. Ballet is carrying centuries of tradition into an era defined by changing audiences, broader representation and increasingly adventurous choreography. Copeland’s festival reflects that transition. For two weeks in August, The Joyce will become a meeting place for the familiar and the unexpected—a celebration of where ballet came from and a preview of where it may be going. And with Misty Copeland helping shape the conversation, the future of ballet promises to be as expansive as the dancers who are defining it.

Based on reporting by The Positive Community.