Dawn-Lyen Gardner: Exclusive Portraits

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September 12, 2019 3:14PM EDT

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Dawn-Lyen Gardner

Dawn-Lyen Gardner — Dawn-Lyen Gardner is an American actress best known for her lead role in OWN’s Queen Sugar. In the show, Dawn-Lyen plays Charley Bordelon, a single mom and new owned of a 800-acre sugarcane farm in Louisiana. Promoting the show’s season 4 finale, the actress stopped by HollywoodLife.com to talk about what’s next for Charley, especially after her son Micah announced he would not be attending Harvard like everyone had hoped! “This is really a huge test in terms of Micah really branching out on his own, defining himself very much independently from Charley, making his own decisions,” she explained in an EXCLUSIVE interview. “For Charlie, it’s also a moment of her, not just letting go of her son, but of her realizing that all that she’s been dealing with — with the Landry’s and the Bordelon’s — and all that she wants to protect Micah from, are colliding in this moment.”

Click through the gallery to see our exclusive photoshoot with Dawn-Lyen Gardner!

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Dawn-Lyen Gardner

Dawn-Lyen Gardner — Just after the season 4 finale of Queen Sugar, the show, executive produced by Oprah, was picked up for another season!

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Dawn-Lyen Gardner

Dawn-Lyen Gardner — Dawn-Lyen Gardner attended Julliard School in New York City. She went on to act alongside her classmate Rutina Wesley in Queen Sugar.

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Dawn-Lyen Gardner

Dawn-Lyen Gardner — Dawn-Lyen had a recurring role in Luke Cage as Megan McLaren and also voiced Steela Gerrera in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

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Dawn-Lyen Gardner

Dawn-Lyen Gardner — While she wasn’t able to tease too much about Charley’s involvement in the mill fire, she did say her character would make her stance known!

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Dawn-Lyen Gardner

Dawn-Lyen Gardner — Dawn-Lyen is a native Angeleno and she is actively involved in advocacy work ranging from youth arts empowerment to racial justice organizing to women’s issues.

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Dawn-Lyen Gardner

Dawn-Lyen Gardner — Dawn-Lyen started acting at the age of nine and received formal acting training at Julliard.

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Dawn-Lyen Gardner

Dawn-Lyen Gardner — Dawn-Lyen Gardner stopped by HollywoodLife to discuss the season 4 finale of Queen Sugar.

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