“Get ready for Sister Vi,” said Oprah Winfrey at a media event for “Queen Sugar” last month. “She’s a hot babe.” That would be Violet Bordelon — better known as Aunt Vi — played by Tina Lifford, who is giving one of the more joyous, vulnerable and thoroughly watchable performances of the summer.

There is a blazing self-confidence embodied by the women who anchor the OWN TV drama (now in its second season), but they are not without moments of self-doubt and this duality — this complexity — is a key to the show’s success.

Created by Ava DuVernay and executive produced by Winfrey, the series follows the lives of three Bordelon siblings and their attempt to breathe new life into a Louisiana sugar cane farm inherited from their father. Their efforts are a radical statement, of an African-American family that refuses to capitulate and sell the land to its white competitors — men who once enslaved the siblings’ ancestors on this very soil.

On hand with a maternal embrace when needed is Aunt Vi, but she is not just there as a supporting character to offer sage advice or a funny line. Her life — her dreams and setbacks — are treated with as much importance and nuance as that of the younger members of the Bordelon family. And as played by actress Lifford, she is one of the more indelible women on TV today.

Rarely does a character in her 50s or 60s get to display a romantic or sensual side, let alone a willingness to slip into a crop top, grab a few drinks at the club and then walk over to her niece’s ex-husband and read him the riot act, as Violet does earlier this season.

Originally from Evanston, Ill., Lifford and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was in middle school.

Even as a child, she knew acting was in her future. Her first screen credit was a brief appearance on a 1983 episode of “Hill Street Blues,” and despite a cascade of significant roles in the years since — most recently on “Parenthood” and “Scandal” — she told me she is still most often recognized for her role on 1998 NBC Motown biopic miniseries “The Temptations.”

That, and “Queen Sugar’s” Aunt Vi.

I reached Lifford in New Orleans, where she had a day off shooting “Queen Sugar.” The following is an edited transcript.

Q: Sometimes actors who spark on screen hate each other off screen. There’s so much chemistry between you and Omar J. Dorsey, who plays your love interest on “Queen Sugar,” and from what I’ve read, you are genuine friends in real life. Did you click right off the bat?

A: They had been looking for Aunt Vi for a while, and that meant Omar had tested with a number of actresses. On the day that we tested, it was a Saturday and that’s not the normal day for an audition, so he came in with a little bit of a ’tude. I had never met him before and I’m sitting in this waiting room and I stand up and I see this dark chocolate, baldheaded — and I think bald is so sexy — baldheaded man sort of lumbering down the hallway, and I said to myself, “If this is Omar, this is going to be easy.”

And he walks into the audition room and he’s being a bit of a Hollywood type to my mind. He’s got his eyeballs on his phone, he gives me a little head nod and he says enough for me to hear a Barry White kind of voice and it’s like, oh my God — this is going to be easy to love this man! But he was not giving me a whole bunch of attention because he was a little annoyed.

Q: Because it was a Saturday?

A: Yeah! So right before they rolled camera, I asked if it would be OK for me to touch his head. And he said, “Sure, do whatever you’ve got to do.” Once the cameras were rolling and we started working, his eyes bugged up and he looked at me and he was like, “Oh. Oh! So we’re going to do this!”

Before that audition was over, I was rubbing on his head, he was rubbing on my feet and we were peckin’ each other — as part of the audition — and it was smooth and effortless. I’m told that when he got in his car, he called Ava and told her that they had found Vi. And Ava said, “Well, let me see the tape.” And when she saw it, she called him back and said, “Well, that was hot!”

Omar is married to a wonderful woman, so in our first rehearsal, at the end I turned to Omar and said, “I don’t believe in messing around with another woman’s husband, but I just need you to know that when that camera is rollin’, I’m gonna love you up one side and down the other!” (Laughs) What’s really wonderful about coming to work and creating such an intimate relationship, doing it with someone you like makes it easy.

Q: Ava DuVernay has specifically hired women to direct episodes of “Queen Sugar,” and since you’ve had such a variety of experiences over your career, do you find it creates a different feeling or vibe on the set?

A: Yeah. It’s subtle and not-so-subtle things. These directors, in the slow cinematic style that Ava set, they’re very comfortable with hanging out in (moments of) discomfort. Hanging out in a look — a character’s look or glance or tearful moment — and not feeling like you have to rush past that. I think that women tend to be more familiar with their feelings than men, so therefore these directors are OK with exploring those feelings in a lot of different ways.

I’m seeing that these women can do whatever their male counterparts do. I mean, literally, I’ve worked with two or three female directors in my career, across film and television. Maybe it’s been five. So the fact that women have not had these kinds of opportunities to any large degree makes no sense. And it’s lovely to see these women stand their ground when needed … to not capitulate and not go into some screaming match. To be focused and committed — for the good the show — was wonderful for me to see. It was wonderful, I think, for everyone on the set to see, male and female.

nmetz@chicagotribune.com