During the cover story interview, Bell also addresses her decision to step down from her role on Apple TV+’s Central Park. Bell, who voiced the biracial character Molly Tillerman on the animated series, was later replaced by actress Emmy Raver-Lampman.
“I grew up in Detroit. I didn’t consider myself an ounce of a racist. And when I read How to Be an Antiracist, White Fragility—required reading of a citizen of Earth in 2020—I realized, ‘Well, I’ve been a part of these systems.’ I was unaware of this whole pot of s–t that’s been stirring,” she tells Romper. “I have a lot to learn. And I have a lot of action steps to take, to fulfill what I think my beliefs are.”
“The people who say I could play that role aren’t wrong,” she later adds. “But I wanted to step down for two reasons. One, if there was one girl who could have a job who wouldn’t otherwise have a job, because there are not a lot of Black or mixed-race characters on cartoons—if one girl could have that job, I would want her to have it. Two, if any little girl who is mixed-race or Black looks up who plays that role, I want them to see someone who looks like them.”
