Anthony Anderson Didn’t Expect To Be So Emotional On Set Of ‘black-Ish’ Finale

Emotions are running high for actor Anthony Anderson as ‘black-ish” wrapped the series after an astonishing 8-year run. 

By Brooks Welch

Emotions are running high for actor Anthony Anderson as ‘black-ish” wrapped the series after an astonishing 8-year run.

As reported by People, during a recent appearance on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show,’ the actor, 51, opened up about filming the final episode of the hit ABC series, revealing that he wasn’t able to hold back the tears.


“I did [cry]. I didn’t cry as much as Tracee Ellis Ross, though. She cried every day,” Anderson said. “Actually the last day, I think I cried a little bit more than [Ross] did, and I didn’t think it was going to hit me the way that it did.”

Anderson said he thought he was emotionally prepared to wrap the series — but he was quickly proven wrong.

“We knew what the last day was,” he said. “I had been prepping myself for it, and in the last scene on the last day is when I lost it, and it was unexpected for me. I didn’t expect to lose it the way that I did, but that just goes to show how much I love what I do [and] love doing it with the people that I did it with for the last eight years.”

The series was nominated for Best Comedy series four times during its run, reports Shadow And Act.

‘Black-ish,’ premiering back in 2014 with two spinoffs, ‘Grown-ish’ and ‘Mixed-ish,’ follows Andre Johnson (Anderson) the father of an upper class Black family who struggles to ensure his children remember their heritage despite growing up privileged in a predominantly white neighborhood (via Screen Rant).

During the interview with DeGeneres, Anderson said the series was the product of a conversation about what television was missing in terms of representation.

“When Kenya [Barris] and I sat down almost 10 years ago now, we looked at what was missing from the landscape of television for us — he and I as viewers — and we wanted to make an important show that had an impact,” he said.

“We took a page from Norman Lear’s book with ‘The Jeffersons,’ ‘Good Times,’ ‘All in the Family,’ and we wanted to do a show like that — a show that had social commentary, with unapologetic lead characters — and I believe we were successful.”

The final episode of “black-Ish” is available for streaming on Hulu.