LaTanya Richardson Jackson

Age: 59

Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia

Currently: Starring as Bertha Holly, the down-to-earth proprietor and expert biscuit maker at a circa-1911 Pittsburgh boarding house in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.

Papp Protege: Jackson’s “Fresh Face” status comes from making a long-awaited Broadway debut after almost two decades away from the stage (more on that later), but she spent the first 10 years of her career working at the Public Theater under Joseph Papp. While studying at Spelman College, she met Papp when he came to Atlanta to see his friend E.G. Marshall in The Best Man. “I was playing the reporter, and E.G. and I struck up a friendship,” the vivacious actress says. Marshall kindly made the introduction, “and Joseph Papp said to me, ‘I can tell you’re talented. When you come to New York, come and see me.’” Taking him at his word, Jackson showed up at the Public after graduation and announced, “Mr. Papp told me to come.” It worked: He put her in productions that toured the city’s parks, and she later headlined the national tour of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.

The Stage Is the Thing: As a child, LaTanya carried expectations of greatness: “My family thought I was going to be a doctor because I had such a proclivity toward science. They just knew, ‘This is how we’re all going to be freed! She’s gon’ be a doctor!” Jackson says with a mischievous laugh. “My aunt was a librarian in Atlanta, and she used to have me sittin’ in that library every summer while everybody else was out going somewhere.” To calm her “busy” daughter, LaTanya’s mother gave her poems to learn and recite; at 14, she won a part in a children’s theater production at Spelman. “And that was that,” she says. “I never left the theater. Once you’re in a play, I think you get hooked.” Six years later, when she was a junior majoring in drama, she spotted a familiar face at rehearsal: a Morehouse College senior named Samuel L. Jackson.

Mutual Attraction: Recalling the day Sam Jackson made his first appearance at the theater, LaTanya says, “I said to him, ‘What are you doing here? Aren’t you a cheerleader [at Morehouse]?’ And he said, ‘I used to be a cheerleader. Not anymore.’” In truth, he’d agreed to do a play to get out of taking a public speaking course, “but once he did, he was hooked, too.” Hollywood ending: “We’ve been together for 39 years, and on August 18, we will have been married for 29 years.” The Jacksons have one child, Zoe, a Vassar grad now working as an associate producer at ESPN. Laughing, LaTanya says, “We were having dinner at Spike Lee’s on Easter and my daughter said, ‘I wish I had a sibling.’ And I said, ‘Don’t start that now. You had gypsies for parents. We did the best we could.’”

Two-Career Couple: Think it’s easy to be married to a superstar? “You have no idea!” Jackson says with a hoot. The secret to their long relationship? “Not wanting to leave at the same time. I’m not kidding! And now we’re too old and lazy.” She speaks freely about her husband’s past indiscretions. “It was hell, from the drugs, from the women—I’m 59 years old, so I’ve seen some things. But we’ve got a great daughter and a great life at this point, so you don’t want to mess that up.” The Jacksons have worked together on two feature films, Losing Isaiah and Freedomland, though producers were initially reluctant to hire LaTanya. “They said, ‘We haven’t had a lot of luck with couples; they fight or show up with an attitude.’ And I said, ‘We’re not like that.’ Sam and I work well together.”

Broadway Dreams: While raising Zoe and acting in movies and TV guest spots, Jackson never stopped thinking about getting back onstage. “I kept expecting Sam to say, ‘You don’t love movies like I do. Just go to New York and audition.’ He never did. And when I got ready to do it, he said, ‘Are you crazy?’” Still, her husband was supportive enough to invest in a New York condo, making it clear he didn’t want to come back east himself. As thanks, she designed a new pool and screening room in their L.A. home. “I said, ‘I’m going to make this house like a resort, so anything he could possibly want to entertain himself will be right there.’” The work was completed in time for the Jacksons to throw a high-profile fundraiser for their friend Barack Obama—and for LaTanya to heed the call she received the day before his inauguration to audition for Joe Turner.

Finding Bertha: Having read the roles of Louise in Seven Guitars and Bertha in Joe Turner at the Kennedy Center’s August Wilson salute last year, Jackson understands what makes his women tick. “My grandmother raised me, and Bertha represents the women I know from that generation,” she says. “Even though Bertha doesn’t have children, she’s the mother of them all. She’s a worker. She holds everyone together, and she doesn’t complain.” Jackson loves the fact that Wilson wrote four major female roles in the play: “You get a nuanced look at who these women are and what they went through. It’s a complete story.” Personally speaking, she appreciates everything she’s gone through on the road to her Broadway debut. “Yes, I wish I was 20- or 30-something, but it’s a much richer experience for me now,” LaTanya declares. “It’s been the experience of a lifetime.”