Anthony Anderson plays men who like people, which sounds like a small thing until you notice how few actors can do it without pleading. It carried eight years of Black-ish; in his films it has mostly been allowed one scene at a time.
Fi1m perspective
In the Law & Order revival that began on 24 February 2022, Anthony Anderson's Detective Kevin Bernard is the one person on screen who seems glad to be there. Everyone else is proving something: the new prosecutors, the new partner, the man running the office with an authority the scripts do not always earn. Bernard asks his questions and listens to the answers. We called him the warmest presence in those seasons, and we also said he was given the least to do, and the two facts are related. Warmth is not a plot point, so the writers spend it early and move on.
That has been the shape of his career on film. He came up as the loud friend in broad comedies, Kangaroo Jack (2003), Scary Movie 3 (2003), his own short-lived sitcom All About the Andersons (2003–2004), and for a while he was cast for the noise. Then came a run of crime pieces: Hustle & Flow (2005), a drug kingpin on The Shield, and Brown in Scorsese's The Departed (2006), where he is one steady face in a cast that includes DiCaprio, Damon and Nicholson and the film has no particular need of him. Our review did not single him out, and we do not think it should have; he does the job and the film looks elsewhere. Transformers (2007) followed, and then the first stretch as Bernard on Law & Order from 2008.
Black-ish (2014–2022) is where the manner got room. As Andre "Dre" Johnson, in Kenya Barris's family sitcom opposite Tracee Ellis Ross, he was the centre rather than the relief, and the show's habit of stopping the jokes to argue about race and family ran through him. He was an executive producer as well as its lead, and he has said of the part, "it's Anthony up there, just disguised as Andre Johnson." We have not reviewed it and will not judge it here, except to say that eight years is a long run, and it is the one credit built around the liking rather than around the joke.
Our honest reaction to the revival seasons was impatience, and not with him. Week after week the scene we wanted was Bernard's, and week after week it went to Hugh Dancy's Nolan Price, who is capable, or to a witness, who is disposable. He has done the harder thing before, on The Shield and in Hustle & Flow, and television keeps hiring the pleasant one instead.
He also hosted To Tell the Truth from 2016 to 2022, which is what happens to actors who are good at liking people: somebody hands them a microphone. We would rather somebody handed him a script with nothing funny in it and a whole hour to fill.
Biography
Anthony Anderson (born 15 August 1970) is an American actor, comedian and television host. He was born in Los Angeles, California, and trained at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and Howard University.
Anderson has appeared in supporting roles in films including The Departed (2006) as Brown, Transformers (2007) as Glen Whitmann, Scary Movie 3 (2003) and Scary Movie 4 (2006) as Mahalik, and Scream 4 (2011) as Deputy Perkins. On television he is known for playing Andre "Dre" Johnson in the sitcom Black-ish (2014–2022) and NYPD Detective Kevin Bernard in Law & Order (2008–2010, 2022).
He has also hosted the ABC version of the game show To Tell the Truth since 2016 and served as a judge on Iron Chef America.
