*“Black-ish” star Tracee Ellis Ross has revealed in a new interview with THR that she almost didn’t sign on to the series because of her co-star, Anthony Anderson, “was an a**hole.”
Ellis Ross told The Hollywood Reporter, “I did not like Anthony,” she said. “I had worked with him in the past. I thought he was an a**hole. If you know Anthony, he has a gruff exterior, and he does not have an inner-governor, and Anthony says stuff that is not that appropriate all the time. Like, everybody knows it’s part of why he’s funny, it’s part of the ace in his deck, but it’s also, like, ‘Oh, my God.’ And if you don’t know him, it can come across rudely.”
She said that the two had a couple of interactions that left her feeling like, “What’s this dude’s problem?” Basically, Anderson rubbed her the wrong way.
“He said some things to me in the past that I did not like, and I didn’t like him. But I knew Kenya [Barris] and I knew all the other people involved, and I was like, ‘I will go in.’”
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But shortly after she walked on set, she realized that she would be able to build a professional relationship with him after all.
“From the moment I walked into that audition, I was like, ‘Oh, there’s magic here. Like, magic. I will tell you, I was wrong — or not that ‘I was wrong,’ but I have a different experience of him now. He is one of my absolutely favorite people. I love working with that man so much.”
Ross also touched on the Hollywood’s ongoing struggle with diversity and inclusion.
“We are in a segregated industry,” says the actress. “There’s a reason that I am the first black female actress nominated for an Emmy [for best actress in a comedy series, in each of the last two years] in thirty-some-odd years [since Phylicia Rashad was nominated for The Cosby Show in 1986] and I am the first that won a Golden Globe in thirty-some-odd years [since Debbie Allen won for Fame in 1982]. You know, I think that’s a comment on many pieces of our industry and our world.”
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