Antoinette Crowe-Legacy portrays Elise Johnson, daughter of crime boss Bumpy Johnson, on the MGM+ series Godfather of Harlem. The actress says her character’s evolution – from a junkie in season 1 to a member of the Black Panther Party in season 4 – has been an exciting journey.
“There is nothing more fun for an actor than to play an arc this deep,” she tells ABC Audio, crediting Elise’s trajectory to the “brilliant writers.” She says she’s grateful to play “a character that seems so seemingly different, but it is the same person just evolving because that’s what we do in real life. Like we change over time.”
Of Elise joining the Black Panthers, Antoinette adds, “It’s just been so much fun to watch a character really have a good justification for trying to pursue something in life that is getting her closer to what feels like her truth.”
Though Elise is “unsure about what her path is,” Antoinette says her character “knows helping people is where she wants to be.” Still, she must face the truth that she and her father have similarities and “something in her is a little bad, too.”
“There’s something really fun about always playing against that dichotomy,” Antoinette shares, noting it comes from Elise’s experience as a junkie and a mentee of Malcolm X, who was assassinated in season 3.
“I wanted to see what happens if she still had the motivation to do all of the good that she learned from Malcolm, but with all of that knowledge that she knew from being on the street,” she adds. The result: A “fun sort of cross-section between her really leaning into her activism, but her not being able to let go of the anger that she feels of this person that she loved being so much being taken away from her.”
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