Merle Dandridge opens up about final season of ‘Greenleaf’

The fifth and final season of Greenleaf premiered last night on OWN, and Merle Dandridge, who plays Grace, has called it “an end of an era.”

In an interview with People Magazine, Dandridge says that one of the things she is most proud of is that it addressed topics that were previously taboo.

READ MORE: OWN drops trailer for fifth and final season of ‘Greenleaf’

“It started conversations that were taboo before and so I feel like culturally, we were able to inch forward and have difficult conversations that would heal certain generational pains that we’ve had.”

Dandridge said that saying goodbye to the cast and crew brought tears all around. The emotional end of the series was punctuated by the deaths of three crew members.

“Toward the end of our filming process, we had lost three crew members in very different ways,” she said, “And so, there was a sense of family and mourning and togetherness, not only for what we had accomplished together in all those years together but also in remembering those people who had contributed so marvelously to the Greenleaf legacy.”

Greenleaf debuted on OWN in 2016 as one of the network’s first scripted shows. It has been nominated for 10 NAACP Image Awards.

Dandridge said the show was an intersection of her faith and career, “the biggest feeling that is coming to the surface for me is gratitude.”

“I walked through this with such powerful people who have become my family — such great thinkers and artists and human beings — my self-confidence and growth edge has expanded,” she explained.

READ MORE: Lynn Whitfield on the joys of playing “layered” character Lady Mae on ‘Greenleaf’

The drama ended with four different cliffhangers that fans are excited to uncover including who was the stranger at the grave when Grace visited AJ. The series is returning a little earlier than its usual August premiere date.

In a short video on Twitter last month, OWN announced that a spinoff of the show is in the works. Details about the new show have not been revealed.

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