Tempestt Bledsoe is best known for her role as Vanessa Huxtable on The Cosby Show, which first graced American homes more than 25 years ago. Today, the Chicago native plays a working mother on the NBC sitcom Guys with Kids. But when she thinks back on her experience as a Huxtable she describes it as historic and incomparable.
“Cosby opened up so many people’s vision to something that they had never seen before, or really contemplated before and exposed them to things that were going on that were completely below their radar,” the 39-year-old said in an interview with The Grio.
Bleadsoe went on to say that her role as Vanessa rose the bar for all her future projects. “We were brought up on a set that is just incomparable as far as what kind of set you would want kids to be on. It was the best set in the world.” she said. “The Cosby Show changed America’s opinion on so many different topics and opened so many people’s eyes and, so, you really learned immediately the power of what you were doing, that there was a power in portraying a role and you were made aware of the effect that it could have on people so it does raise the bar.”