Hilary Ward Talks HBO’s ‘All the Way’ and Her Role as Coretta Scott King [Exclusive Interview]

Actress Hilary Ward has a very personal connection to her upcoming role as Coretta Scott King on HBO’s All the Way.

The film, which airs Saturday at 8/7c on HBO, is an adaptation of the Tony Award winning play of the same name. It focuses on the first year of Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency after Kennedy’s assassination, as he then takes on the Civil Rights Movement and the war in Vietnam.

I recently spoke with Ward about her personal connection to the story and what it was like to play the role of such an important woman.

“It’s a huge responsibility when you’re playing someone who lived — someone who was so important to so many people,” Ward said of portraying Coretta Scott King.

“I felt this huge responsibility to get it right. To try to portray her humanity and get down to the things that were motivating her day by day, as opposed to playing an idea of a person or playing an icon. I wanted to really honor her humanity and explore how difficult it must have been for a young woman who had aspirations of her own to be at home with her children, to take care of her children and her home. And her husband was traveling so much of the time, and he was in danger so much of the time,” Ward explained.

“[When] he could be himself and reveal the things that were weighing him down, she was the one who was there to see that and support him.”

While research was an important part of preparing to play the role, Ward said there was also a lot more to it than that.

“It was very important to me to get to the reality of what that must have been like for her. You know, you do all of your research, and you read her own words, and you look at pictures, and you try to find out as many things as you can about her — and then you just let your imagination go from there.”

Playing a role like that is, of course, very different than playing an entirely fictional character. “There are people that you are answerable to,” Ward said.

“There are facts that you are answerable to if you are playing a real person. It’s a fine line. You don’t want to be so hampered by your research and other peoples’ opinions that you don’t make your own choices as an actor. But what I tried to do, is just like I said, try to have as many as those facts and stories about her in my mind, so that I felt like I was making choices that she might have made had she been in these exact circumstances.”

Ward’s connection her role as Coretta Scott King is significant, having grown up hearing about the Civil Rights Movement from her grandparents and great grandparents.

“My family has always been involved — always really cared about education, always really cared about civil rights, and were really living at the center of Jim Crow, which I didn’t understand as a kid,” Ward explained.

Her great grandmother also took a lot of risks at the time to fight for her community and her family. “She had a long history of educating the community, of taking in students who wanted to be educated,” Ward said. “She left her children with my great grandfather and went up to this university to earn her college degree.”

“My great grandmother didn’t vote for the first time until 1974,” Ward continued. “She carried her voting card around with her until the day she died.” And Ward’s great uncle, William Raspberry, put himself on the map covering the Watt’s riots, later becoming a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist.

All the Way features an incredible cast, including Bryan Cranston, Anthony Mackie, Melissa Leo, and Bradley Whitford. Ward called the ensemble “a dream cast.”

“Just the fact that I was going to be able to be on set with all of these people and see how they work was something that was really exciting to me,” she said. “Most of my interactions were with Anthony [Mackie], who was lovely, generous, so funny, and was able to keep it light in between takes and then really jump into character full force. I was so honored and blessed to work with him.”

Ward also gave an example of why she loved working with Anthony Mackie, who plays Dr. Martin Luther King in the film.

“There was night in particular. It had just been a hard day, and the extras had been there all day long. They finally got to my coverage about, oh, it was maybe 11:30 or 12:00, and a lot of the extras hadn’t gotten the chance to eat. It was the crowd scene, and I was sitting in the crowd watching King receive an award, and my coverage was just not going well. The extras were wrecked,” Ward said.

“Anthony basically got up, and gave everyone a huge pep talk, and got them laughing and got their energy back up. And in two takes we were able to get my coverage, and everybody was able to leave for the night. I just thought that was so generous of him.”

In addition to her upcoming role on All the Way, you might also recognize Hilary Ward from her recent role as Pam Benton on The Fosters, which Ward said has been one of her favorite roles recently.

“I just loved playing that woman. She was just so mean!” Ward laughed.

“It was really wonderful to get to play something like that, because it’s just not the way that I operate in the world. And not to mention that, I don’t know if this is because it’s ABC family or because one of the creators of the show is a woman, but I was just so happy to be on set. There were so many women and people of color,” Ward said.

“Two women directed both of my episodes, which in all of my time in LA, that has been my experience maybe just one more time. It’s so rare that you get to go in for a commercial or a television show and be directed by a woman. So that was a great experience.”

When Hilary Ward isn’t busy working, she’s able to find the time to watch a few of her favorite television shows. “I have to say, I would pretty much watch Viola Davis read a phone book, so I never miss How to Get Away With Murder. I just love her so much.”

Ward also cited AMC’s Rectify as one of her favorites.

“I just find it fascinating. I think the characters, the writing — the whole world that they’ve created is just one of the best on television. And I remember watching the first couple of episodes, and I remember thinking, oh man as an actor if I had gotten these scripts, I would be a little bit scared. Because it’s not apparent right away what you can do,” Ward said. “Those scenes are really complex and full of nuance. I really love that show.”

Don’t miss Hilary Ward as Coretta Scott King on All the Way, airing Saturday, May 21^st at 8/7c on HBO.