“We don’t renew vows. I still have my same wedding band,” the ‘Salem’s Lot’ actress tells PEOPLE of herself and husband Roderick Spencer

Alfre Woodard and Roderick Spencer in New York City on Sept. 29, 2022. Photo:

Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty

For Alfre Woodard, love is about growing together.

The award-winning veteran actress recently opened up to PEOPLE about her new role in the Stephen King film adaptation Salem’s Lot, now streaming on Max, and also took some time to touch on her nearly 41-year marriage to producer Roderick Spencer.

“It’s that thing of partnering up. You just know your partner,” says Woodard, 71. “Your partner just happened to be good in bed, but your partner, it’s your trust place. It’s family, but in a way that has nothing to do with DNA. It’s constant discovery and renegotiating and continuing to fall in love.”

She also stressed the importance of laughter “even in the difficulty” of life, explaining, “You can cry about it, you can argue about it, and then sometimes in the middle of it all, you don’t know why, but something will make you laugh.”

Alfre Woodard and Roderick Spencer in the 1980s.

Ron Galella Collection via Getty

Celebrity Couples Together for More Than 50 Years

“And if there’s an irreverence there, that either of you can make each other laugh or look at something that makes you both laugh — because the thing is, it’s all always all right,” Woodard says. “And the laughter and the humor that you’ll share, it is a principle. It’s always there.”

The couple — who share two 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren, daughter Mavis, 33, and son Duncan, 30 — will celebrate 41 years of marriage on Oct. 21.

Asked if they did anything extra special to mark their 40-year milestone in 2023 or have something planned for this year, the Summer Camp actress tells PEOPLE, “You know what? When it’s real, you don’t stop to mark a date.”

“We just would do what we would be doing,” she adds. “Yeah, we don’t renew vows. I still have my same wedding band. If I want another ring, I put it on another hand.”

Alfre Woodard in Salem’s Lot (2024).

New Line Cinema/Max

Alfre Woodard Shares the Key to Her 37-Year Marriage: ‘We Speak the Same Language’

Woodard’s new role in Salem’s Lot sees her as Dr. Cody — with a big change from King’s 1975 sophomore novel, in which Cody was a man.

Asked whether the gender shift made it easier or more difficult to play, the four-time Emmy winner tells PEOPLE there was “a lot of freedom” in her version of the character, as it’s “the only one I know.”

“She’s a woman because I am,” Woodard says. “I think it was written for a man, and it became me, the choice to do it. And I like to believe this because [writer-director Gary Dauberman] felt that as an actor, whatever aspect to focus on Dr. Cody, that I could embody that in his mind.”