By Ron Wynn
NASHVILLE, TN — Danielle Pinnock has been quite busy lately with roles in multiple shows. She’s been featured on CBS’s “Young Sheldon,” HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show” and EPIX’s “Get Shorty.” She’s also had memorable guest appearances on ABC’s “Scandal” and NBC’s “This Is Us.” Now she’s got a new role, starring as Alberta in the CBS comedy series “Ghosts,” which debuted last week.
Pinnock stars as a Prohibition-era lounge singer-turned-ghost to life. She’s trying to navigate life as she’s trapped in a modern-day country estate that was recently inherited by two tenants who certainly didn’t expect to be greeted with a few friendly guests.
“First of all, I just want to give a shout-out to my mom and my grandmother,” Pinnock told the Shadow & Act website. “I was raised in a women’s only household. Three generations of women raised me and I just have to shout them out because as Jamaicans, the career is always to be a doctor, be an engineer, or be a lawyer. They really took a chance on me with this acting moment.”
“I’m so glad that they truly believed in me and were just the most supportive family ever even throughout my school plays in high school,” Pinnock continued. “They would all hop on the church bus. My mom has 12 brothers and sisters and I have a ton of cousins so everyone would come and bring food and do all of these things.”
Pinnock’s the only Black person on “Ghosts.” She credits the writers for ensuring that people can actually see themselves within her character.
“I would have to say shout out to the writer’s room because everyone in the cast is represented in the writer’s room,” said Pinnock. “We have a Black female writer, Lauren, who is incredible and when we first got into the process of goals, they allowed the entire cast to meet the writer’s room and it was then that we just shared our personal stories and how we truly felt about that time period.”
Though she’s representing a performer from a far from enlightened period for Blacks in America (the 20s), Pinnock has a good outlook regarding her character. “I think a lot of times what can happen on network television is that diversity is used as a decoration where it’s like we have a diverse cast, but for seasons, we don’t have any background information on who these people truly are, if they even have families,” she said. “I mean a lot of times they are just in place to serve the white story and for something like this, that’s not the case with this show at all. We’re going to get into these deep flashbacks, obviously with a comedic twist.”
In addition to “Ghosts,” it was recently announced that a series Pinnock co-created is being developed for television. It’s called “Unmentionables,” and is an adult-animated series she co-created with Punam Patel of Netflix’s “Special.” It is being i developed by Emmy award-winning producer Anthony Hemingway and Taraji P. Henson.
“Ghosts” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. Central (locally on WTVF-5).
