Biography

February 23, 1970 · Palmdale, California, USA

Carol Denise Ensley

1.63 m

Often wears a flower in her hair

Voluptuous bombshell figure

Acting is the call of my life, I felt like I didn't have any other choice. I wasn't committed to anything else.

[speaking about how she was introduced to the idea of becoming a comedian while a guest on the National Public Radio program, "Fresh Air", in 2015] And I will say that when my brother was murdered in '93, my mother went into a very severe depression. And she said, "I'm getting in the bed and I'm never getting back out." And all I knew was that I could make my mother laugh. I never realized that comedy was a gift because I always got in trouble because I got talks too much on my report card or I got pinched for cracking jokes in church. And so when my mother went into this depression, what I started to do was I would go to the foot of her bed every day and I would perform. And I would do characters, I would do voices, I would do a comedy routine, I would dance, I would sing. My mother went from laying down in the bed to sitting up in the bed. And she said, "I got my peanuts and my water. Go on and do your rendition of things." So I just kept performing. Then one day I come and my mother's not in the bed. And I'm like "Mama, where are you?" She's like "we're in here." And I'm like "who is we?" "Well, I went across the street and got the neighbors. I told them you was funny. Get that karaoke microphone and tell these people some jokes." And I'm like "what?" So I get the microphone, I'm standing on top of the fireplace. I'm like, tapping the mic, "is this thing on? How's everybody doing in the living room" was my first bit in front of an audience. And I realized, as I was standing on that fireplace, that comedy was a gift. I did not know that before. And I'm not going to tell you that it healed my mother, but what I am going to say is that it kind of served as a Spackle or a salve when it comes to piecemealing something back together. And so I had been going out auditioning because in my mind, I wanted to do only dramatic work. I never saw myself being a comedian. I wanted to be Cicely Tyson. If you equate it to someone of this day, it would be a Viola Davis. But I couldn't book any work. And after I stood on that fireplace, I heard a voice as audible as my own speak to me and say, "Niecy, don't be selfish. It's other people outside who are suffering. You need to go outside and spread this around, Niecy.".

[on Claws (2017)] So many times when you are a woman in a television show, you're after a man. The men are leading the charge and the men are doing all of these great things in the story and the woman's just kind of there as an action piece. Well, the thing about our show is that the women are leading the charge. The women are full, independently full. They have lives. The other thing I love about our show is that most of our cast are women of a certain age and we're still viable and funny and sexy and we're all of these amazing things: complicated, conflicted, and we're enough. We're enough.

I found out very early on that the most powerful word in this business is "no".

I don't want to be a sassy black anything. I don't want to be a sassy black mama. I don't want to be a sassy black neighbor. I don't want to be a sassy black friend. There's so many more notes to be played.