For the last four years, Danielle Pinnock has been a ghost — and she couldn’t be happier. As one of the large, spirited cast of CBS’s Ghosts, Pinnock plays former Prohibition-era jazz singer Alberta, who died on New Year’s Eve 1928 after accidentally drinking poisoned moonshine. But in Pinnock’s hands, Alberta’s living her very best afterlife as the show wraps up its fourth season and looks forward to the now-guaranteed two seasons more ahead.
Part of Pinnock’s joy in the role, as she tells Gold Derby, comes from the way Alberta is written. “A lot of times what happens when you see any actor of color playing on broadcast television, we almost become decorations on a Christmas tree where we’re just fun to look at, but no one really cares about our storylines,” she says.
Not so with series creators and showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman (aka “The Joes,” as Pinnock calls them). That’s very true with Alberta, who in the last couple of seasons has had her murder solved (about 100 years after the fact) and more recently reconnected (in a sense) with one of her descendants — a great-grandniece, Alicia (Ashley D. Kelley), with whom she bonds over music.
“When I think about my ancestors, we put them in such a high regard, not realizing that they can also be a hot mess, too,” she says. “I love the comedic aspect of that.”
Pinnock grew up in New Jersey, and has been performing in theater since she was in elementary school; while attending Temple University she met Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson. Over the years Pinnock has appeared on series including Young Sheldon, This Is Us and Scandal, but has also cocreated and starred in the Webby Award-winning digital sketch series Hashtag Booked (with LaNisa Renee Frederick). Meanwhile, playing Alberta has garnered her some award attention – including an NAACP Image Award this past February.
“The thing that I feel makes Alberta stand out is her authenticity,” says Pinnock. “She has some of the best one-liners on the show. … Alberta is so authentically herself, but she does struggle with being vulnerable. The fear of possibly losing her street cred, the fear of not knowing what a healthy love looks like, because Alberta is used to these dopamine hits kind of relationships with murderers and gangsters. She did make a lot of poor decisions in her life.”
One reason Ghosts may hold together so well with its ensemble casts of ghosts (and the owners of Woodstone Manor, only one of whom can hear and see them) is that early on the show was being shot in the middle of the pandemic, and the cast had to bond quickly. These days they’re also a bit isolated as a group, shooting in Toronto and knocking out the still-broadcast-standard of 22 episodes each season. That may be why now, says Pinnock, they’re really hitting their stride.
“Rebecca [Wisocky, who plays Hetty] always says when we’re working on a scene, ‘We really need to find the musicality,'” says Pinnock. “I feel right now, not only do we have that musicality, we’re singing, we’re soaring.”
Pinnock is rightly proud of the representation of BIPOC actors and crew on the show, but suggests that the recent dialing back of DEI initiatives due to the new administration in Washington has her concerned.
“We had a really great run in the pandemic, where people actually cared to hear our voices, where Black producers were getting deals and actors were able to be seen in roles that they may not necessarily have been seen in,” she says. “I worry with what representation will look like in the next few years. That being said, we are a resilient people. … I will always create, regardless of who is in office. I will always make sure that my friends and my community, the people that have brought me to this place that I will find them work. My mother taught me that.”
But that’s the future for the actors in this world. Pinnock is focusing hard on making sure Alberta’s post-living life is worth, well, living. So what can she expect in the coming seasons?
“Well, she may or may not be in a relationship. I’m very curious to see what that looks like for her,” says Pinnock, who notes that more layers of afterlife may get explored. “I’m very interested in what those other worlds look like. … I would love to get some different combinations in there – and just see what sparks.”
