5 Questions With Glynn Turman of OWN’s ‘Queen Sugar’

For someone who died in the pilot of Queen Sugar, which returns to OWN for its seventh season on September 6, Ernest Bordelon sure casts a long shadow.

The patriarch, played by Glynn Turman, was so powerful that his presence continues to resonate among his grown children. And as the beloved series wraps, Turman is back on set. For someone who spent his formative years in Manhattan, he’s at ease on a farm, where the sugar cane rises as far as you can see.

Grabbing some shade in one of the small houses on St. Joseph Plantation where Queen Sugar shoots, 75-year-old Turman relaxes. He flashes that famous grin, the one fans noticed in Peyton Place, Cooley High, and The Wire, and answers our “5 Questions.”

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Your first job was playing Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee’s son in the original A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway. How did that come about?

In my mother’s living room were James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Josh White, and all these magical people. She was an extraordinary woman who worked at the post office. But she was in [Greenwich] Village at a time when the Village was a hub of intellectual progressiveness.

Given that was your start, when are you starstruck?

I’m doing a movie called Rustin, about the man who put together the 1963 March on Washington. The movie was produced by Barack Obama and Michelle Obama for their flagship project for a new motion picture company, Higher Ground. We had to shut down because of the COVID, and so all the actors have been dispersed. We get a call, and who’s on my Zoom? Who was I Zooming with in my little cluttered makeshift office? President Obama and Michelle Obama!

What shows did you grow up loving?

The Rifleman, and any Western.

What categories on Jeopardy! would you run?

You would think I would go for theatrics, Broadway or something like that, or horses. But I do best in some of the geography. It was one of the few classes that I paid attention to.

What are some of the other jobs you did as you were making your way as an actor?

I did several jobs while in the High School of the Performing Arts. I worked in the diamond district, the garment district. I worked at Macy’s and Gimbels. The last job I had a 9 to 5 was as a truck driver for a furniture company in New York, and that’s what I was doing when I auditioned for a play for Lloyd Richards. I had an entire truckload of furniture parked in front of The American Place Theatre and went up to audition and had a crew of guys who [were] cussing me out for leaving them in the truck. And I barged in on this audition and told Lloyd he hadn’t seen me since I was 12, and I was now about 19, and I said I got to audition for you real quick, and I auditioned for him and left, and that was the last job I had that was not connected with the arts.

Queen Sugar, Tuesdays, 9/8c, OWN