Bianca Lawson Isn’t Ageless and Doesn’t Want to Be

Bianca Lawson would rather not be called ageless, thank you very much. Name-calling is one of the oldest power-plays in the book: It’s just as cutting in the boardroom as it was on the playground, but since it never causes physical harm, it’s easily dismissed. And while we all know the “sticks and stones” rhyme, anyone who’s been called a bitch or a slut (or stuck with any label she doesn’t identify with) understands just how damaging name-calling can be. In Mislabeled, Glamour talks to some of the most interesting women we know about the role name-calling or labels played in their pasts—and how it’s shaped the women they are today.

Bianca Lawson is an aberration. She’s managed to sustain a two-decade career as a steadily working actor without courting any of the Hollywood shrapnel that frequently comes with it. No spiteful tabloid headlines, no Twitter feuds, no publicized breakups. “I’ve been very fortunate,” the 43-year-old tells me over the phone of her low-drama persona. “In the press and on social media, I feel people have been very, very kind to me.” 

Maybe that’s because she’s consistently been showing up and doing the work. Since landing her first series, Saved by the Bell: The New Class in 1993, Lawson has had both regular and recurring roles in an extraordinary number of pop-culture home runs that include Dawson’s Creek, Sister, Sister, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Save the Last Dance, Teen Wolf, and Pretty Little Liars. Since 2016 she’s starred as Darla, a drug-addicted mother in the Deep South on the OWN drama Queen Sugar, a role for which she recently picked up an NAACP Image Award for best supporting actress. The series—executive-produced by Ava DuVernay—will air its final season this year. 

Still, that’s not to say people never had their own misconceptions about who she is. “Early on, I played a lot of mean girls, so people thinking I’m going to be like my characters” is something she says she’s dealt with, in addition to the press obsessing over her seemingly unchanged looks, which can be a blessing and, in some ways, a scourge. 

Here, we talk to Lawson—who, in case you didn’t know, counts Beyoncé and Solange Knowles as stepsisters—about labels she’s encountered in her career, how she deals with criticism, the advice she feels confident passing along to others, and how she manages to unwind after a productive day.

Glamour: As you were coming up, has there ever been a label ascribed to you that has stuck? Even if it’s not necessarily pejorative, something that’s shaped the outside perception of you and followed you along the way? 

Bianca Lawson: I tend to be an observer, and I think sometimes when you’re quiet, people think of you as being aloof. There was a time in my life where I would over-index on being too nice to eradicate that, possibly to my own detriment. It’s a wonderful thing to be nice and kind, but if you’re not advocating for yourself or saying how you really feel because you don’t want people to misinterpret it, then you’re not being your authentic self. You don’t want people to take it the wrong way if they already think of you as silently judging when, really, you’re just observing and listening.