page_title: Alfre Woodard
section_title: 2000s
hierarchical_section_title: Alfre Woodard / Career / 2000s
caption_attribution_description: Alfre Woodard stumps for Barack Obama in New Philadelphia, Ohio on 2008-02-20
context_page_description: Alfre Woodard is an American actress, producer, and political activist. She has been named one of the most versatile and accomplished actors of her generation. She has been nominated once each for an Academy Award and Grammy Award and 18 times for an Emmy Award and has also won a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.
  Woodard began her acting career in theater. After her breakthrough role in the Off-Broadway play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, she made her film debut in Remember My Name. In 1983, she won major critical praise and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Cross Creek. In the same year, Woodard won her first Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in the NBC drama series Hill Street Blues. Later in the 1980s, Woodard had leading Emmy Award–nominated performances in a number of made for television movies, and another Emmy-winning role as a woman dying of leukemia in the pilot episode of L.A. Law. She also starred as Dr. Roxanne Turner in the NBC medical drama St.
context_section_description: In the 2000s, Woodard’s film career showcased her versatility in a range of genres, including the ensemble comedy-drama What's Cooking? (2000), the romantic drama Love & Basketball (2000) as the lead character's mother, science fiction films K-PAX (2001), The Core (2003), and The Forgotten (2004), the biographical drama Radio (2003), comedies The Singing Detective (2003) and Beauty Shop (2005), the romantic drama Something New (2006), and the dance-musical Take the Lead (2006). Woodard also was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance as a drug addict in the Holiday Heart (2000). In addition, she performed voice work in a variety of feature and television documentaries, as well as a voice role in Walt Disney's Dinosaur. The film was a financial success, grossing over $349 million worldwide.
  
  On television, Woodard guest-starred in two episodes of The Practice in 2003, for which she won her fourth Primetime Emmy Award. In 2005, she joined the cast of the ABC comedy-drama series, Desperate Housewives as Betty Applewhite, the new mystery housewife. Her character was introduced in the last episodes of the series' first season, and became the center of the second season’s mystery. Series creator Marc Cherry noted: "There's nothing strategically black about her character. Her color is incidental." Woodard stated that she had never seen the show before being offered the role, leading the producers to send her fifteen episodes of the show, which she divided amongst various family members. After they compared storylines, Woodard recalled that she became "instantly hooked" on the series. As soon as Woodard accepted the role of Betty Applewhite, she reported experiencing heavy media attention. Woodard's portrayal of Betty was praised and resulted in a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2006. However, her mystery as a whole had mixed reviews. In a review of the second season premiere, Michael Slezak of Entertainment Weekly thought that the Applewhite mystery would help reduce the show's chances of falling into a sophomore slump. He praised Woodard's acting as well as her character's storyline, opining, "there's something so inherently warm and maternal in Woodard's performance, such apple-pie wholesomeness, that it makes her touches of menace all the more chilling." However, as the season progressed, there were many complaints about Betty's lack of interaction with the other housewives. She left the series in the second-season finale episode.
  Woodard was nominated for Primetime Emmys for her roles in the television films The Water Is Wide and Pictures of Hollis Woods (2007). She starred as lead in the Tyler Perry's drama film The Family That Preys in 2008. The film received mixed reviews from critics, but her performance received acclaim. Los Angeles Times critic Bob Baker said in his review: "The film takes off when Woodard's and Kathy Bates' characters go on a Thelma & Louise-style road trip.", while The Washington Post's Neely Tucker wrote: "By far the best thing about the enterprise is Woodard. If she's not in this thing, I think it goes kaput.". In next year, she appeared in the independent drama American Violet, playing the mother of a 24-year-old African-American woman wrongfully swept up in a drug raid. She also starred in two short-lived television series: NBC's My Own Worst Enemy (2008), and CBS's Three Rivers (2009).
caption: Woodard stumps for Barack Obama in New Philadelphia, Ohio in 2008
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