Judith Light’s eclectic — and award-winning — career depends on her approach to the roles she takes.
“My work is my service,” she explains. When promoting something like “The Terror: The Devil in Silver,” the Emmy- and Tony-winner gets to talk about issues like mental health.
“People respond to that; our business responds to that,” Light says. “They know that I will take seriously what they are bringing forward and the messages they are trying to get out there. That matters to people, and I think they know that about me.”
Judith Light stars in the new series “The Terror: Devil in Silver.”
Emily V. Aragones, AMC
Light first tripped the trigger on “One Life to Live,” where she performed a courtroom scene that is now regarded as the one of the finest examples of daytime acting. The role won her two Emmys and led to primetime offers.
“It really comes down to the work that I have to do prior to doing the character,” she says. “There are things you can find in yourself that you can draw on.”
In “The Terror,” she plays Dorry, a longtime patient at the New Hyde psychiatric hospital. She tries to advise a newcomer (played by Dan Stevens), who isn’t supposed to be there. The series gives her a chance to talk about mental health in the United States “and what it means to be in a world and a healthcare system that diminishes people, not everywhere, but it many places,” she says.
Dan Stevens as Pepper, left, and Judith Light as Dorry in “The Terror: Devil in Silver.”
Emily V. Aragones, AMC
Light says she gets roles like Dorry because she’s a team player.
“I’m not making it about myself. I’m making it about all the other aspects of the work and that comes into play, a lot,” she says. “You get a reputation over time, and there are people who say, ‘This is a person I want to work with.’”
After a long run on “Who’s the Boss?,” Light landed roles on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Ugly Betty” and “Dallas” before joining “Transparent,” a dramedy that brought numerous Emmy nominations, and two Broadway shows that netted her a pair of Tonys.
“People feel strongly that I have integrity,” Light says. “And that matters to (audiences). They know that I would speak the truth about stuff.”
A string of productions kept her extremely busy in recent years, including an Emmy-winning for a 2024 role on “Poker Face.”
“Our industry has finally caught up with the fact that mature women have a lot to talk about,” the 77-year-old says. “And a lot of people are writing those kinds of characters. Look at Kathy Bates and Jamie Lee Curtis — they have stories to tell. I’m proud to be a part of that.”
CCH Pounder as Miss Chris in “The Terror: Devil in Silver.”
Emily V. Aragones, AMC
For “The Terror,” Light had to shoot in a decommissioned New York prison.
“It was pretty creepy … but it was also like a prison,” Light says.
That added to the authenticity and helped the cast address the things that make viewers scared, she says.
“It’s like the scaredy thing that happens to you when you go on a roller coaster and your heart is in your throat,” she explains. “It makes us feel alive or connected. This is not just creepy. This is psychologically thrilling, this show.”
“The Terror” isn’t another “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Light says.
“It is about patients in a mental facility, but this is not about who can stand up for themselves. There’s no Nurse Ratched,” she says.
Dorry, she says, is like “Cassandra crying in the wilderness and saying, ‘You need to know about this place,’ and then other times, just saying she had to surrender because nobody would listen to her.”
The series’ genre, wasn’t the lure. “It was who the people that I was going to be working with,” Light says.
“The Terror: The Devil in Silver” airs on AMC+ and Shudder.