Before actress Cassandra Freeman landed the role of Aunt Viv in Peacock’s “Fresh Prince” reboot “Bel-Air,” she had come off a heavy role and told her manager she desired to play someone who was wealthy and delightful. She wanted lighter fare.
“That’s it, I don’t wanna do any more sad stories about black people,” she told me on this week’s episode of “Renaissance Man.” “I’m like, ‘I’m done. I don’t [want to] be crying on the street over my dead black boy. I’m done with that.’
“But when this role got here through, I used to be like, ‘OK, no, not this one,’” she continued. “And my manager called me. He’s like, ‘That is literally every part in your list.’” But Cassandra didn’t think she’d book it. Her enthusiasm was unnecessarily lukewarm.
“Then finally I saw Jalen Rose Morgan Cooper’s trailer of his vision of this thing and I used to be like, ‘Oh, that’s sensible.’ Cooper is a genius.”
She was in Greece, on her first post-COVID vacation, when she learned she landed the part. Her manager told her she needed to choose up the phone, despite the fact that it was 3 a.m.
“Since I said, ‘Yes,’ to this role, my life has been a roller coaster of loads of highs and just so extreme,” she said. “I’m just so relieved how much the culture has embraced this version of the show. I wish to say it’s not a reboot. It’s a deepening of ‘The Fresh Prince.’”
Last month, Peacock’s adaptation of the sitcom was renewed for its third season and Cassandra’s Aunt Viv continues to thrive. As for creating a powerful TV mom, the Florida native said Phylicia Rashad as Clair Huxtable and Marla Gibbs in “227” were inspirations. She also channeled Diahann Carroll in “Dynasty.” And he or she has some all-star mom work under her belt. In 2016, she portrayed Kevin Durant’s mother within the Lifetime movie “The Real MVP: The Wanda Durant Story.”
Her first acting gig, when she was fresh out of NYU grad school, was working with Hollywood legends Denzel Washington and Spike Lee in “Inside Man.”
“They were every part that I’d hope anybody would have on their first film set, where they didn’t treat me like a child. They treated me like I used to be an element of this world just as much as them.”
Cassandra was accustomed to strong male figures. She was raised by her father, Mack Freeman, who was Jacksonville’s first black television reporter, and the one that turned her onto “Star Trek.”
Her father also taught her the virtues of the Bible and “The Godfather.” He would quote them each “in the identical sentence,” she said, adding, “He was type of like Martin Luther King to me. He would have these booming speeches and he was very magnanimous. And the women love Mack Freeman. He used to have his own radio show. He was like a DJ and he was once a Black Panther. I actually grew up within the shadow of being Mack Freeman’s daughter. It used to feel like I used to be just like the princess of something.”
She also got a serious boost — and a profession pivot — from Chris Rock, whom she starred alongside within the 2007 rom-com “I Think I Love My Wife.” Cassandra was filming a scene with him and after they cut, she made a crack about Whitney Houston, which he said was an important joke.
“He’s like, ‘No, no, but you’re really, really funny.’ I used to be like, ‘Really?’ So due to Chris Rock is why I began my stand-up profession. I worked on the Comedy Store, but it surely was truly due to him. I’m such a fan of Chris Rock, and he has been such a assist in my profession,” Cassandra said, adding that he’s all the time checking in on her, advocating for her and asking if she’s getting paid properly.
“I’m saying, like he’s a supporter of black women out here.”
But the most important MVP in her life is her husband, Tom Paul. “Even on my lowest days, he still thinks I’m a queen,” she said.
