SHARON CARPENTER
IS EXPANDING THE STORY
From journalism and live television to acting and new creative ventures, Sharon Carpenter reflects on visibility, self-confidence, and building a career that refuses to be defined by a single path.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHARON WELL STUDIOS
“FOR ME, REINVENTION HAS NEVER MEANT BECOMING SOMEONE ELSE. IT’S MEANT STAYING CURIOUS ENOUGH TO KEEP DISCOVERING MORE OF WHO I AM.”
SHARON CARPENTER, JOURNALIST, ACTRESS, TELEVISION HOST, AND PRODUCER
Sharon Carpenter has never been content to master a single lane. She has quietly widened the frame altogether. For years, audiences have trusted Carpenter to guide them through some of the world’s biggest stories. Sometimes that meant standing beneath the bright lights of live television, delivering breaking news with precision and calm. Other times it meant sitting across from cultural icons, asking the kind of questions that reveal more than headlines ever could. From royal commentary on CNN and ABC News to celebrity interviews for E! News and live conversations with millions tuning in during the HQ Trivia era, she has built a career rooted in credibility, a quality that feels increasingly rare in an age driven by speed, spectacle, and performance. But Sharon Carpenter has never seemed interested in remaining static simply because the world became comfortable seeing her one way.
Long before acting became part of the conversation, Carpenter had already built a career defined by movement across formats, industries, and expectations. Acting, she says, is not a departure from journalism but an extension of it, another way of telling stories and exploring what makes people who they are. And perhaps that is the thread connecting every chapter of her career: curiosity. A willingness to keep evolving, even after people think they understand exactly who you are.
There is a composure to Carpenter that feels earned. Not performative confidence, but the steadier kind that develops over time — through reinvention, scrutiny, and learning to trust your own voice after years of feeling underestimated. Growing up in England, where she was bullied for being non-white, self-confidence was not something handed to her easily. It was built through experience, ambition, and the quiet decision to keep showing up before she felt ready.
Now, whether she’s appearing in major film projects, including her first leading role in the psychological thriller Bolted, developing new shows behind the scenes, offering cultural commentary on national television, or preparing to step into the fashion space, Carpenter moves with the clarity of a woman no longer interested in shrinking herself to fit a singular identity. Journalist. Actor. Producer. Entrepreneur. None of those roles cancel the others out. Together, they tell the story of a woman no longer interested in being reduced to one thing.
And beneath the polish and visibility, there is also intention. Advocacy work, compassion for animals, and a commitment to journalism as public trust all reflect an understanding that influence carries responsibility. In Carpenter’s world, ambition and conscience are not opposing forces. They coexist.
Perhaps that is what makes this moment in her career feel so compelling. Not simply that she is evolving, but that she is allowing herself to do so publicly — without apology, without over-explanation, and without asking permission to become more than one thing at once.
Below, Sharon Carpenter reflects on confidence, credibility, acting, inner peace, and what it means to keep expanding the frame when the world expects you to stay inside it.
“CONFIDENCE ISN’T NECESSARILY SOMETHING YOU’RE BORN WITH. MOST OF US HAVE TO BUILD IT PIECE BY PIECE AND THAT STARTS WITH REFUSING TO LET OTHER PEOPLE DECIDE HOW WE SEE OURSELVES.”
You’ve spent years guiding conversations in front of millions of viewers. Has your relationship with visibility changed over time as your career has expanded into new spaces?
My relationship with visibility has changed quite substantially over time. When I first moved to the U.S. for university, my dream didn’t involve being in the limelight at all. I wanted to work in the music industry as an A&R and eventually own my own record label. I was pretty reserved back then, so visibility definitely wasn’t something I was chasing.
I actually fell into TV when I was offered the chance to host a public-access show, which primarily involved interviewing music stars. The show was relatively small, but it changed my life — helping me realize this was the right path for me and leading to me landing my first opportunity in journalism as an associate producer for an NYC newscast. From there, I moved on to producing at BET, and eventually a new dream formed — to work on camera on a national network.
It didn’t take long before I got that opportunity — first on CBS and then going back to BET to work on-air. The high visibility that came with it was certainly exciting, but for me, it’s always been less about being seen and more about doing justice to the stories, my interviewees, and the audience watching. While it’s awesome when your work is seen and appreciated by a large number of people, it’s even more satisfying to know you’re a trusted source and impacting viewers in positive ways.
Social media completely changed the game. It gave me the ability to break stories, build community, and connect directly with people without waiting for permission. That part is incredibly powerful. But it also created this pressure to constantly post, perform, and chase whatever is trending. At a certain point, that can start to pull you away from the work itself. For me, social media is a tool, not the destination. I use it intentionally. I post when I feel I have something to say, something to share, or something that aligns with who I am. But I’m not interested in living my life for the algorithm. I’d rather put my energy into the work, the storytelling, the advocacy, and the things that actually matter to me.
Now that I’m acting more, my focus is on the craft and doing great work. Being seen is a beautiful part of the job, but the work has to come first. I’m a quality-over-quantity kind of girl.
Growing up in England, you’ve spoken openly about being bullied for being non-white. How did those early experiences shape the way you learned to see yourself and the confidence you carry now?
I was bullied pretty much every day as a young kid, from around the age of four until I was about fourteen. I grew up in majority-white areas of the UK — first Watford, then Guildford — during a time when blatant racism was everywhere. Kids called me names, including the N-word, and I was constantly told, directly and indirectly, that my skin tone and hair were unattractive. Of course, as a child, that affects you and I had a lack of confidence about my physical appearance.
But there were other parts of me that I was very confident about. I did well in school and was very creative, so even when people tried to make me feel less than, I knew I was smart, capable, and talented. They could say cruel things about how I looked, but they couldn’t take these other things away from me.
Hip hop also played a huge role in helping me build confidence. Growing up, seeing other people of color be so unapologetic, bold, expressive, and confident had a profound impact on my own self-esteem. I also have a mother who is my hero and has always been my biggest cheerleader. Her belief in me helped me build belief in myself. Those early experiences gave me a passion to excel and taught me that confidence isn’t necessarily something you’re born with. Most of us have to build it piece by piece and that starts with refusing to let other people decide how we see ourselves.
Your career has moved between hard news, entertainment, royal commentary, digital media, and now acting. What has staying curious taught you about growth and reinvention?
I feel very blessed to have had such an exciting roller-coaster ride of a career so far, and honestly, it actually feels like it’s getting more thrilling by the day. Curiosity, to me, is very connected to passion. When you’re passionate about something, you naturally want to understand it on a deeper level. But curiosity can also fuel passion because it keeps you open, engaged and willing to grow.
As a journalist, curiosity is essential. Your job is to ask questions, listen carefully and get to the truth. And I think that’s true for acting as well. As an actor, you’re also searching for truth — the truth of a character, moment, relationship, pain, desire and more.
When I look at the different spaces I move in career-wise, curiosity has definitely played a part. But it’s also been about staying open-minded, being willing to take risks, being okay with failing and following or creating opportunities that genuinely speak to me. When I first moved to LA, I had to reset a bit and create space to figure out where my passion really lives now. Dreams evolve as you go through life. I think that’s a beautiful thing if you’re willing to listen to yourself. For me, reinvention has never meant becoming someone else. It’s meant staying curious enough to keep discovering more of who I am.
From left to right: Sharon Carpenter interviews Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, interviews Kim Kardashian on the red carpet, reflects on her years in journalism from behind the camera, and celebrates a new chapter on the set of Bolted, where she takes on her first lead role in a feature film.
You’ve said acting feels like an extension of journalism rather than a departure from it. What does storytelling through performance allow you to express that journalism cannot?
I’ve interviewed a lot of actors as a journalist, but since studying acting myself, I do now see it as an extension of journalism. At the heart of both, as I mentioned above, it’s about getting to the truth.
With journalism, you’re telling a story through facts, interviews, context and investigation. You’re asking questions, listening closely, and trying to help the audience understand what happened and why it matters. There’s a responsibility to be accurate, fair and clear.
Acting allows me to explore truth in a different way, giving me access to the emotional life underneath the facts — the things people don’t always say out loud, the pain they try to hide, the contradictions they carry, the private battles no one else sees.
As a journalist, I might interview someone about a traumatic experience, a major life moment or a turning point in their career. As an actor, I get to step inside a version of that emotional reality and express it from the inside out. Performance also allows for more ambiguity. In journalism, you’re often trying to clarify. In acting, you can allow the audience to come up with their own interpretation of what’s happening internally. You can sit inside the complexity of being human and show that someone can be strong and broken, confident and afraid, loving and flawed all at the same time.
You’re appearing in Superman at a moment when your career is expanding in multiple directions. What did that experience teach you about yourself that surprised you?
Appearing in Superman was one of the most exciting opportunities I’ve ever had in my life. I grew up loving the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. In fact, as a kid, I would literally beg my parents to let me watch the original over and over again. So when I booked the role, it was a dream come true.
What surprised me most was how comfortable I felt stepping into a space that big. There were hundreds of people on set. I was working with James Gunn, who is one of the most brilliant directors in the world. But instead of feeling overwhelmed, I felt calm. I felt prepared. I felt like I really belonged there. That was a really beautiful realization for me.
It also taught me something about how we process success. Of course, in a perfect world, you want everyone you love to celebrate your wins with you. But sometimes people can’t meet you in that moment, for whatever reason, and it should never take anything away from the accomplishment.
The experience reminded me to honor my own journey. It taught me to take in the win, trust that I belong in major spaces and not let anyone else’s reaction define the value of something I worked hard for.
Bolted marks your first lead role in a feature film. What did it mean to have Angel trust you with such a complex character and what did that experience reveal about you as both an actor and a person?
I’m so honored that Angel trusted me with the lead character in Bolted, Blue. Angel is a legend and someone who has built her career on excellence, discipline, and performing at the highest level, so I knew that trust came with a real expectation of quality. Blue is an incredibly complex character, and I was truly grateful that Angel believed I could carry both the emotional and physical demands of her story.
While I already had faith in myself that I was capable of leading a feature, the experience taught me to trust my instincts and showed me new depths of what I could access within myself.
I learned how to reach the most emotionally raw places and, just as importantly, how to remain connected to them while navigating blocking, wardrobe, and makeup touch-ups, and all the movement happening around me on-set in between scenes and takes. As an actor, it taught me how to protect that inner world in the middle of a very technical process. As a person, I think it showed me just how deeply I am willing to go in service of telling a story truthfully.
“CREDIBILITY IS ABOUT INTEGRITY. IT’S ABOUT RESPECTING THE AUDIENCE, RESPECTING THE STORY, AND RESPECTING MYSELF.”
Without giving too much away, Bolted explores the idea that things are not always what they seem. What do you hope audiences take away from the film long after the credits roll?
There are a number of powerful themes within this story, but there is one message in particular that will likely hit the hardest — the importance of forgiveness and self-love. I hope audiences walk away with a reminder of how essential it is to forgive, to learn to love ourselves, and to treat ourselves with kindness.
Without giving too much away, Bolted explores what can happen when we continue to carry pain, guilt, and unresolved trauma. Healing begins when we stop running from the things that haunt us and finally find the courage to face them.
In a media landscape driven by speed and constant visibility, credibility has remained a major part of your identity. Why is protecting that trust still so important to you?
Credibility is incredibly important to me because, at the end of the day, your name is your name. Your word is your word. I’ve never wanted attention badly enough to compromise either of those things.
We’re living in a time where speed and visibility are often valued more than accuracy, context, or depth. Everyone wants to be first. Everyone wants to go viral. For me, the work has to mean more than that. I care about doing high-level, meaningful work and I care about being someone people can trust.
That doesn’t mean I have to know everything. No one does. But if I’m speaking on something, I like it to be rooted in real knowledge, real research, or real experience. And if I don’t know enough about a topic, I’m comfortable saying that. I think there’s strength in being honest about your limitations. That has always mattered to me professionally, but it also carries into my personal life. I won’t make statements that I know aren’t or may not be true. I won’t pretend to be informed about things I haven’t taken the time to understand. For me, credibility is about integrity. It’s about respecting the audience, respecting the story, and respecting myself. I’ve worked hard to become a trusted source and protecting that trust will always matter more to me than just chasing a moment.
There’s a calm confidence you seem to carry, even in high-pressure spaces. What helps you feel most connected to yourself when life becomes noisy or demanding?
Meditation each morning is key for me. It helps me manage my nervous system, feel grateful and start the day with ease. I also remind myself daily that, despite what we’re often taught, life is supposed to be fun. I’m pretty disciplined when it comes to my thinking. I try not to dwell on negative thoughts or give too much energy to fear. I really believe that what we focus on expands in our experience, so I make a conscious effort to focus on what’s good, what’s possible, and what feels healthy and productive.
Working out and going for walks also help me stay centered. I try to get outside every day, feel the sun on my face — with sunscreen, of course — while I listen to something positive or uplifting. It’s amazing how quickly that can shift my energy. I’ve left my place feeling down and come back fifteen minutes later feeling like I can take on the world. We focus so much on action, hustling, pushing and forcing, but I think some of the most important work we do is internal. Learning how to quiet negative self-talk, relax, feel good, believe in ourselves, look for the light and lead with love. That’s what keeps me connected to myself. When I’m aligned internally, I feel much more grounded externally. There’s real power in that.
You’re also deeply involved in animal advocacy and humanitarian work. How do compassion and purpose influence the way you move through your career and public life?
Compassion for animals, people and the planet has become a major part of who I am. I really want to do my part in trying to make the world a better place for everyone, including our animal friends. Animal advocacy is something I care about deeply, and I’ve been fortunate to work with incredible organizations including Mercy For Animals, Compassion in World Farming and Animal Outlook. I also use social media a lot for that work because it gives me a direct way to help spread the message that animals are individuals, not commodities. They are not here for us to use and exploit and they deserve our kindness and respect. At the same time, I want to show that compassion is cool. Living with kindness doesn’t mean living with limitation. You can have a beautiful, stylish, fun, fulfilling life without cruelty and without feeling like you’re missing out. I love collaborating with brands, but I won’t promote anything that isn’t vegan or aligned with my values. For me, compassion is not separate from ambition. It gives ambition direction. It reminds me that success matters most when it’s connected to something bigger than yourself.
When you think about the life you’re building now, beyond titles or accomplishments, what feels most important to protect?
I’m so grateful for everything and I’m loving every minute of this amazing adventure. What’s most important for me to protect at this point? I’d have to say my peace, happiness and authenticity. Peace used to sound boring to me, haha; now it’s actually very exciting. There’s truly something thrilling about it. It’s the place where ideas grow and where magic happens and with practice, it’s an amazing place you can always retreat to internally, no matter what’s happening around you.
