Mayme Johnson has stepped into a new era in season 4 of Godfather of Harlem, the historical drama about crime boss Bumpy Johnson in the 1960s, as she focuses on getting onto the New York Fine Arts board.
Ilfenesh Hadera, who portrays the character, tells ABC Audio Mayme’s goal to help Black artists get the recognition they deserve is part of an organic evolution that is “wonderful to see.”
“Season 1 and season 2, for me, were about survival, surviving. Season 3 was more about, OK, we’ve established ourselves. We’re back as a family unit. Now we can think about thriving,” she says.
With “the health, stability and security of her family” under control in the show’s fourth season, Mayme now has her sights set on helping people in the culture, a quality Ilfenesh says her character, based on the real Mayme Johnson, always had.
“[Mayme] worked with Adam Clayton Powell and the Voting Rights Act and other such political movements, civil rights movements,” Ilfenesh says. “But this becomes really specific [in] season 4, it becomes about legacy and creating a space for not just her family and her community at large, but for specific individuals that she sees as too bright and talented to keep from the rest of the world.”
“It’s why she does try to ingratiate herself with the swans who say really kind of cringe-worthy, offensive things,” Ilfenesh notes, referencing the women on the New York Fine Arts board. (AUDIO IS ABC 1-ON-1)
She adds it was fun to play a Black woman in the 1960s who bit her tongue and took hits for the greater good.
A new episode of Godfather of Harlem premieres Sunday on MGM+.
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