Meagan Good talks career, blocking outside opinions and more in first solo ‘ESSENCE’ cover

After nearly 30 years of acting, Meagan Good finally thinks “people are starting to get who I am.” In her first solo cover for ESSENCE, she says, “I had to get to a place where I stopped caring in order for me to walk into the place where people now are like, ‘No, I actually get her.'”

Meagan’s been proving herself since she was 4 years old, when she had to convince her first manager that she was ready for acting. When she auditioned for Deliver Us from Eva at 19, the directors thought she was too young. But she impressed Gabrielle Union, who vouched for her to get the role.

Meagan also fought to read for her starring role in Harlem and made sure she was physically fit to audition for a role in the DC Comics film Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which she eventually landed.

“I take it as a challenge,” Good says of being underestimated. “I can still change people’s minds about me, and I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as a purpose thing.”

Socially, Meagan faced criticism by the Christian community when she was married to Devon Franklin. She was also accused of bleaching her skin in 2020. The actress had no rebuttal for the latter experience, but she says it led to her now-carefree attitude.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but my concern with what other people thought about me was such a thing that I had to go through something like that where I literally had no other option,” she says. “I had to be put in that place in order for me to get as free as I am now.”

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