Name any genre and Wendell Pierce has embodied it on either stage or screen. From the comedic Captain Wagner in the CBS sitcom hit Elsbeth, which just returned for its third season, to the heroic Perry White in this past summer’s blockbuster Superman, to the tragic Othello in the Washington D.C. Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Othello next year, his list of credits is as deep and dynamic as ever.
With a career that spans four decades and counting, the Juilliard-trained actor shows no signs of slowing his roll—or roles. With Marvel’s Thunderbolts, Jubilee, a musical based on Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, and Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest in his rearview mirror, 2025 was a “summer of movies and a season of theater.” He takes great pride in his diversity and breadth of work, which he has carefully cultivated with intention.
“I never work just to work,” Pierce says. “It has to bring some fulfillment in my mind.
That’s the career and the body of work that you want to create.”
At 61, Pierce has not only talent but experience on his side in these creative pursuits. And while that experience brings a deeper sense of purpose and self, Pierce will be the first to admit that these attributes don’t eradicate doubt or prevent crises of faith.
Courage is acting in the face of fear, not in the absence of it,” Pierce says. “So while I may sometimes wonder if my best days may be behind me, I also challenge myself to make sure that they aren’t.”
Meeting the Physical Challenge of the Craft
Playing a wide range of roles demands a high level of emotional and physical commitment. Theater roles are a great workout, Pierce says—one where you leave with more energy than you started with.
"People say, ‘Man, after those three hours on the stage, I can’t believe you’re not fatigued,’” he says. “But even though you expend an incredible amount of physical and mental effort during the show, you have this electric energy and excitement afterward, no matter how depressing the plot may have been. It fills you.”
As he ages, he hopes to care well for the body, mind, and soul that allow him to be filled in that way again and again.
Routine and consistency with his physical activity help him stay in shape while juggling a “quixotic and ever-changing” schedule, he says. In 2025 alone, his work has taken him to Dubai, London, Anguilla, Los Angeles, and New York.
“It actually is advantageous for me to travel because when I travel, I am much more active—I hike and I swim,” Pierce says. “Activity is built into my schedule. I always feel so healthy.”
He tries to maintain that active spirit during his stretches at home in New Orleans, where he turns to group sports. Pierce says he loves to search out a pickup basketball game or a partner for tennis. But even when he can’t find a workout buddy, there’s one type of movement he’s regimented about: stretching.
“When it comes to aging, I find the stretching of my muscles and joints to be one of the most important habits I have,” Pierce says. “I’m more consistent with that than anything.”
Prioritizing Prevention
Pierce cites his parents as great role models in his life, but in one aspect he also learned what not to do as he ages: sit still. His father, who died just shy of his 99th birthday, spent many of his later years sedentary.
“When my father retired, he said, ‘I’ve been working since I was 14 years old, and now I’m going to sit down and I’m not going to do anything,’ and he lived up to that,” Pierce says. “But I understood then that if someone didn’t have the resources that I had to help give him care around the clock, he wouldn’t have lived as long as he had. It’s important to move.”
Nutrition plays a major role in his healthy living routine, too. Pierce says he finds he’s most nutritious when he cooks for himself with fresh fish and vegetables from the grocery store and isn’t eating out all the time.
“The act of cooking helps me eat better—and eat less,” Pierce says. “It’s a classic move. The chef is satisfied by the time the meal is prepared and others are eating. I taste as I cook, and I serve the meal satisfied.”
Tending to Spirit and Soul
As an actor, Pierce says he never subscribed to the idea of “putting a character away” so that his personal life would be kept separate from a character’s life. Until Death of a Salesman. As the protagonist, Broadway’s first Black Willy Loman, Pierce says he was faced with a new mental hurdle.
It was an exploration of psyche that I had never experienced before,” he says. “It made me realize the importance of self-care.”
The practice of prioritizing his emotional well-being has continued to serve him in the different chapters of his life since. This past spring while filming the action-packed Jack Ryan in London, Pierce says he realized he felt better than he had in months. The physical demands of the role and the exercise they provided were only part of it—he noticed that his stress was lower than usual.
“I was relaxed, going to the theater every night, and no longer in the midst of the political turmoil of America,” Pierce says. “That’s when I truly understood what stress does to your body—how it raises cortisol. I now prioritize stress relief as part of my health.”
As a native New Orleanian, Pierce knows that nourishing your mental health doesn’t mean avoiding grief or pain, but instead holding fast to your center so you can act with compassion for yourself and others.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Pierce had one of his most powerful artistic experiences: On a stage in the devastated Lower Ninth Ward of his beloved New Orleans, he performed Waiting for Godot.
“I stood on that hallowed ground and said the lines, ‘So at this place, in this moment of time, all mankind is us. Let us do something while we have the chance before it’s too late,’” Pierce says. “It was cathartic. That line was emblematic of where we were—and it helped me and my community to rebuild our community of Pontchartrain Park, which is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Brick by brick, house by house, block by block, we did it. That’s the power of art. It inspired us to rebuild.”
Those experiences have helped Pierce see what to focus on and what to move away from as he gets older.
“It’s easier for me now to put healthy aging into work with better nutrition, more discipline when it comes to physicality, and a healthy mental journey, which is vitally important with aging,” he says, “whether you get that through your faith, or a solid understanding of where you are, or a better understanding of what the important things in life are. For me, I don’t let the day end without saying, ‘What is it that you want to do in this moment?’ And then I do it.”
