In Netflix's 'The Residence,' Uzo Aduba doesn't tell jokes — but she's seriously funny

When Uzo Aduba’s parent was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the histrion stepped into the relation of caregiver until her mother’s death. During the grievous period, the three-time Emmy victor etched the beginnings of a memoir, published past year, called “The Road Is Good: How a Mother’s Strength Became a Daughter’s Purpose.” In it, Aduba writes, “This is simply a communicative not astir decease but astir life. This is my mother’s communicative arsenic overmuch arsenic it is my own.” That heavy transportation to her parent has travel to specify her.

“The pistillate that I person go is founded connected the mode I was mothered. I americium the girl of Nonyem Aduba, and truthful overmuch of the mode she moved done beingness arsenic a pistillate — not lone did it interaction and signifier my fortitude and committedness to moving hard, but adjacent however I spot characters, specifically pistillate characters, is built disconnected the teachings that were poured into maine arsenic a daughter.”

Best known among those characters is surely Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren connected Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black,” a breakout relation for which Aduba earned 2 Emmy Awards. That show opened different doors, including portraying erstwhile person and statesmanlike campaigner Shirley Chisholm successful Hulu’s 2020 miniseries “Mrs. America.” Her galvanizing depiction brought a 3rd Emmy. “People truly did instrumentality a existent liking to her arsenic a human, contempt the politics, which I deliberation is fascinating fixed the time. We’re talking astir a woman, a Black pistillate successful a precise circumstantial section successful American history, truthful adjacent to the Civil Rights Act,” she says of coming to recognize Chisholm.

Have specified successes validated her travel arsenic an actor, 1 she astir gave up connected successful leaner days? “I became an histrion due to the fact that I loved the instauration of art, to archer stories,” she says. “However, I, too, person felt the interest looming from the artist’s doubt: Is determination abstraction successful this country for a dependable similar excavation to exist? And I’d accidental that, passim the years, these wins, fixed to maine by my peers, person near maine encouraged to judge that yes, determination is.”

Her dependable comes present by mode of Cordelia Cupp, a full-time birder and part-time transgression solver successful Netflix’s “The Residence,” from creator Paul William Davies. The eight-episode whodunit, from Shonda Rhimes’ accumulation company, Shondaland, is acceptable successful the halls of the White House, wherever the decease of 1 of its East Wing employees during a authorities meal enactment triggers panic.

Enter the cape-wearing Cupp with her superhero quality to work radical and spot clues. For Aduba, the quality jumped disconnected the page. “I retrieve speechmaking the material, and she had this powerfulness that was truly contiguous for me. It would look similar she would get conscionable a atom of accusation and determination would abruptly beryllium a wealthiness of cognition that she was capable to extract from it.”

Uzo Aduba successful “The Residence.”

(Jessica Brooks/Netflix)

Finding the character’s mannerisms was different cardinal study. “She work similar idiosyncratic who spoke truly accelerated due to the fact that she processes accusation truly quickly. So I wanted her to beryllium capable to talk arsenic accelerated arsenic imaginable and for america to get wrong the caput of however she does her investigative work,” she says. “This is simply a pistillate who listens to the proposition you said, past she’s similar a hawk — pun intended — perched up connected the investigative table. So I started reasoning this mightiness beryllium an workout of stillness some erstwhile she speaks and erstwhile she listens.”

That stillness — an uncomfortable soundlessness to galore — often leads those being questioned to capable the void with much accusation than they intended to share. During 1 magnetic monologue, wherever Cupp pieces the clues unneurotic to whom she believes is the killer, we spot each the cogs of her quality and wit turning swiftly. “She takes her occupation precise seriously, and for maine to execute that technically, it inspired this thought of flatlining her a small bit. It felt similar she’s not present to archer jokes but what she says is funny. She’s 5 feet gone past the joke, and you’re like, ‘Wait, what did she conscionable say?’”

Aduba’s afloat sanction is Uzoamaka Nwanneka Aduba. She was calved successful Massachusetts to Nigerian immigrants and, arsenic a teen, was an exceptional fig skater: 1 who could onshore treble axels with a practiced easiness that betrayed the aggravated committedness down them. She attended Boston University connected a track-and-field assistance arsenic a sprinter, studying classical dependable and discovering acting. Today, she’s the parent to a girl and seems to person softened her intensity: She has a passionateness for cooking, speechmaking books (Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” is simply a favorite) and watching world television. Her blameworthy pleasure: “The Real Housewives.”

And she inactive holds her clip arsenic a caregiver close, precocious providing the narration for Bradley Cooper’s documentary “Caregiving,” which is simply a hard look astatine attraction successful America. She connected with Cooper’s communicative of caring for his begetter during his combat with lung cancer. “I cognize what that beingness looks like. I cognize what that satellite is. I cognize what it means to beryllium juggling your front-facing beingness with your backstage life, your nonrecreational responsibilities with your familial desires,” Aduba says.

“I could conscionable spot a batch of myself successful those stories, and that made it a existent no-brainer for me,” she adds. “This is an accidental to effort and spotlight that enactment happening each azygous day, and we might, done this process, alleviate immoderate of the accent and the overwhelming feelings that travel with that invisible labor.”