Ernie Hudson is one of those actors who’s been everywhere and done
everything, from playing Warden Leon Glynn on HBO’s prison-fest  Oz to guesting in practically every show on the air (or so it seems!), from Heroes to Private Practice to The Secret Life of the American Teenager. He was also one of the original Ghostbusters, starring opposite Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray.

In many ways, Hudson's life reads just like a Hollywood script, as I learned in a recent interview. His mother died from tuberculosis when he was three months old, and he never knew his father. His grandmother raised him in Benton Harbor, Michigan, struggling to support the family on what little income welfare provided.

The only difference between Hudson’s life and a Hollywood script? He refuses
to play the victim. He’s upbeat and down-to-earth, and credits that attitude to
his upbringing.

“My grandmother was very involved in the church, but I always saw her as more
spiritual than religious,” he says. “She believed that you don’t need anyone to
make you whole. You don’t need anyone to complete you. You already are
complete.”

Here's a story he told me that I'll never forget. One time he and his grandmother ran out of money and went without food for four days. "We had some Lipton tea and some crackers from the kitchen at the church. She felt really bad about it, but I kept saying, 'No, Mama, I'm fine. I'm really fine.' I was reassuring her that we were going to be ok, and then we settled in and a sort of peace came over us." 

And they were fine. Hudson says he learned a lot about himself during
that time and looks at it as a blessing rather than a hardship. “She always said
that the circumstances are not who you are. Circumstances will come and go, but
you are constant, and that’s what you have to hold onto.”