Sheryl Lee Ralph is now an Emmy winner.Ralph, who plays no-nonsense veteran teacher Barbara Howard on ABC’shit comedyAbbott Elementary, accepted her award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at Monday’s ceremony with a powerful rendition of Dianne Reeves' “Endangered Species.”
“I am an endangered species, but I sing no victim’s song,” the former Broadway star belted as she opened her acceptance speech. In an elegant black and red dress and a bedazzled updo, Ralph captured the audience’s attention with her triumphant voice. “I am a woman I am an artist, and I know where my voice belongs.”
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The song was followed by an equally powerful speech from Ralph, thanking her family and support systems while emphasizing the importance of never giving up on your dreams.
“To anyone who has ever—ever—had a dream, and thought your dream wasn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t come true. I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like,” she said. “This is what striving looks like. And don’t you ever, ever give up on you!”
Ralph Talks Forging Her Own Path: “I Already Feel Like a Winner”
TheAbbott Elementarystar’s Emmy win was no easy feat. Ralph, who has been acting since 1977, says that there was a time when she nearly gave up on her dream.
Speaking with NPR ahead of the Emmys, Ralph shared that a chance encounter with a casting director at her daughter’s school when changed her perspective when “things weren’t happening the way that [she] thought they might.”
“It really took that moment to reexamine my career, reexamine who was representing me and get out there and get better representation, which I did with my current manager, Lisa Wright. And what she was able to do, with the trajectory that she was able to put me on, is exactly where I am, exactly where she told me I deserve to be.”
And this perspective shift, Ralph says, has made her deeply grateful no matter the outcome of any given awards show.
“Whether I get that trophy in my hand or not, I already feel like a winner. The love that has been shown to me, showered on me, the flowers that have been given to me, literally and figuratively. I feel like a winner,” she said. “And forever after this, I will always be Tony-nominated, Emmy-nominated Sheryl Lee Ralph”
