Black Film | Megalyn Echikunwoke

Premiering tonight on Fox is the new series ‘Almost Family’ starring Brittany Snow, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Emily Osment and Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton.

Almost Family is the story of an unusual family formed through extreme odds, exploring such hot-button issues as identity, human connection and what it truly means to be a family. An only child (Brittany Snow, the “Pitch Perfect” franchise, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) finds her life turned upside down when her father (Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton, “American Crime,” “Ordinary People”) reveals that, over the course of his prize-winning career as a pioneering fertility doctor, he used his own sperm to conceive upwards of a hundred children, including two new sisters (Megalyn Echikunwoke, “The Following,” “90210,” and Emily Osment, “The Kominsky Method,” “Young & Hungry”).

As these three young women slowly embrace their new reality, they will attempt to form an untraditional bond as sisters, even as they must welcome a tidal wave of new siblings into their rapidly expanding family. Based on the original Endemol Shine Australia series, “Sisters,” from Jonathan Gavin and Imogen Banks, the series also stars Mustafa Elzein (“Sequestered”), Mo McRae (“Big Little Lies,” “Pitch”) and Victoria Cartagena (“Manifest”).

For Echikunwoke, this is her return to the Fox network since she was last seen in a recurring role on The Following. Her previous TV credits include 24, The 4400, 90210, House of Lies, and White Famous. On the big screen, she recently seen in Late Night opposite Emma Thompson, Amy Ryan, Mindy Kaling, and Night School with Kevin Hart.

In the middle of this summer, Blackfilm.com caught up with Echikunwoke as she talked about her character and why she took on the role.

What can you say about your character?

Megalyn Echikunwoke: I play Edie Palmer. She is the only child of her mother. She thinks she is a donor conceived person (DCP). And in the pilot, she finds out that she’s known her biological mother all her life but it was her mother’s fertility doctor who used his own sperm to inseminate not only my mother, but many of his clients so that he may have upwards of 100 kids. I play a successful criminal defense attorney who’s married, and maybe not so happily.

What attracted you to the series?

Megalyn Echikunwoke: The writing. There’s a lot of bad writing out there. I was lucky enough to read something good. They also wanted to work with me too. That’s great.

There’s a number of comedic scenes in the series. Are you playing your role straight or do you have any funny bones in you?

Megalyn Echikunwoke:A lot of people all of us have a little bit of a comedy background. We have a really balanced resume. I think I have a pretty balanced comedy versus drama resume. Other women also do so. I think that the writers will write to that as much as they can. As much as it makes sense. I think there is a lot of drama to unpack. But hopefully this show maintains an element of levity throughout because I think they are hilarious. I think that our writer Annie Weisman is really good at comedy as well, writing comedy.

How did the cast get along while shooting the series?

Megalyn Echikunwoke: We are really lucky that we all have great chemistry. We all like each other. We hang out. And we can’t wait to become closer, which is not always the case. This is a very fortunate circumstance.

What keeps you humble when you’re not working?

Megalyn Echikunwoke:I’m just myself. I can’t really put my finger on it. When I work it’s like I’m absorbing something right. I’m channeling something else. Not that I don’t try to develop myself. I  try to be more like a fun. So real self is always evolving and incorporating something new.

Source