From speaking engagements to social media to what she wears on red carpets, Ross believes in the power of culture, and she’s conscious of her role in shaping it. “Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, Wonder Woman—they informed me,” she says. “No, they were not women of color, but look what’s here now. . . . We know that storytelling changes how we see ourselves and how others see us. There’s evidence of this. These things make a difference. They’re not for naught. Do I think that television is changing the world? Yes and no. There’s a tilling of the soil that occurs.”

After growing up in New York and Europe, where she attended boarding school in Switzerland, Ross graduated from Brown University with a theater degree, and worked in fashion as a model and as an editor at Mirabella and New York magazines. Her early acting auditions were humbling. “Being a ‘child of’ meant that you were sort of riding on the coattails of your parent,” she says. “It would unlock the door and then people would sit on the other side . . . waiting for you like, ‘She’s no Diana Ross.’ At a very young age, even before I wanted to be an actor, I felt just the energy that was coming at me because I was a piece of somebody that people loved.”

“I LITERALLY HAVE SAID, ‘WHY DON’T YOU JUST GET OUT OF MY WOMB?’ ”

After a series of small parts in TV and film, Ross landed a life-changing role, as a lead on the UPN/CW sitcom Girlfriends. The show, which ran for eight years starting in 2000, was groundbreaking in centering on the work, friendships, and love lives of black women. Yet, despite its longevity and success, Girlfriends did not open every door Ross hoped it would. “When I was on Girlfriends, I thought I would be able to get on David Letterman or Jay Leno or some talk show, and I never—it never happened,” she says. “After being the lead on a show for eight years that did incredibly well, I thought perhaps the seas might part and I would have my choice and my pick of the litter—no, that didn’t happen.” The television industry was a vastly different landscape then, too, one with fewer networks and fewer opportunities for a creative person to blaze her own path. “We’re in a very different time now, where you can produce and create—and [Insecurecreator-star] Issa Rae is such a great example—but that didn’t exist when I was on Girlfriends,” Ross says. “You couldn’t create a show for YouTube and then get it to go on HBO.”