In 2021, Adrienne Warren received a long-delayed Tony Award for her brilliant portrayal of music icon Tina Turner in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. Her acclaimed performance was much more than mimicry. Warren created a take on the legend that blended a deft interpretation of Turner’s very famous mannerisms while simultaneously making the role uniquely her own.
Warren followed that performance with an entirely different project, also a take on a key historic figure. ABC’s limited series Women of the Movement explores the tragic events surrounding the brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in rural Mississippi. Audiences may know the basics of this horrendous story, but they likely do not understand the extent that it changed America. Warren plays Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who would eventually become a crucial figure in the American Civil Rights Movement. Her emotional journey through these horrific events grounds the limited series in the love between a grieving mother and her murdered son. Thanks to an incredibly talented and dedicated cast, Movement emerges as a universal story that is both steeped in 1950s Black culture and a broader take on a pivotal, brutal moment in American history.
Adrienne Warren’s performance as Mamie is a wonder to behold. How do you capture a woman at the very worst moment of her life? Where does an actor pull the raw emotion to illustrate Mamie’s lived experience? These are a few of the topics Warren discusses with Awards Daily as she looks back on her brilliant work. She talks about absorbing all available information about Mamie and pouring that into each moment shown on screen. She talks about the variations the audience sees as Mamie travels to the South at great risk to her life to seek justice for her murdered son.
Finally, she talks about the great joy she feels in the reactions she’s received to Women of the Movement and hope it starts a conversation about broader education on all aspects of American history.
Through her performance, Adrienne Warren could start a movement all on her own.
Women of the Movement streams on Hulu.