This summer, Emmy-winning actress Alfre Woodard will be returning to television in TNT's new crime drama 'Memphis Beat.'

For the Oklahoma native, whose television credits include 'Hill Street Blues,' 'St. Elsewhere,' 'L.A. Law,' 'Desperate Housewives,' and most recently 'Three Rivers,' Woodard gets to film closer to home as the series is being shot in Tennessee.

In speaking with Black Voices, Woodard talks about 'Memphis Blues,' playing the mother in numerous films and her children.

What attracted you to another TV series?

Alfre Woodard: The script. I have committed to... this is the third TV script I've committed to in the past couple years. Whatever it is, I follow the script, much to my manager's despair (laughs). I had just come out of a show (CBS drama 'Three Rivers'), I mean just came out. The plug pulled one day, and then I heard there were these other people who had been waiting for the numbers to stall because they wanted me in their show. Literally, a week later, I came here. They said it was a police drama and I went, "Hmm." I don't get too excited for medical shows or police dramas, but when I read it, it was not forensics and fibers and DNA; it was really about the people, the characters. They don't seem fictional; they seem real, like people you might know. 'Memphis Beat' is a really good show and music plays such a big part.

Can you describe the character you're playing?

AW: I play Lt. Tanya Rice, and Tanya has come from the suburbs of Memphis to this sketchy precinct downtown. She immediately butts heads with detective Dwight Hendricks, who Jason Lee plays. He's a very off-centered law enforcement officer. He lives by the book of Elvis, he looks to Elvis, what would Elvis do kind of thing. He also plays in a cover band, and is a very effective crime solver. He goes on his intuition, though, and that's where we butt heads, 'cause I'm all about procedure, logical linear crime solving. I've got five grown children that I think I've exceptionally raised and educated. That comes into question. Dwight thinks I treat him like a kid, and basically I let them know that if they're going to act like teenage boys I know how to handle that. Very randy and risqué; they eat terribly, and I'm on them about that. That's who I am. They solve crimes, but you won't be frightened or weeping. It's everyday situations.

Do you have an accent on the show?

AW: I'm an actor that fully develops a character, and that involves what they sound like, not just regionally but as a human being. You want to find the specifics of the character: the way they walk, the way they move, and, of course, I'm doing a dialect. In Tennessee there are different accents. Some of our guest actors are Southern, and so much shooting is going on here in Louisiana, and it's not based in Louisiana so they're trying to fit in.

Whenever we see you on the big screen you're always playing someone's momma. Is 'Memphis Beat' a different take for you?

AW: Well, I'm playing someone's momma on 'True Blood' and 'Memphis Beat.' My job is to remind people that all the amazing people in the world have had children, but when they stop nursing somebody you see something different. That's a role American women are castigated into.

You're always the voice of reason.

AW: Sometimes. I don't do anything I've ever done before, because it wouldn't interest me. I can't do it. You're going to bore your audience. Ever see something called 'Holiday Heart?'

Yes I did.

AW: That was not an upstanding mother. I think people have an impression of me, but if you look at all the work they're all quite different. Lorretta from 'Down in the Delta' comes to mind, but she was stuck in her teenage years. I think people have an impression of me from what they remember, but if you look at my body of work, each role is different from the other.