Regina King’s mother was onto something. Mrs King senior gave both her daughters names that mean ‘queen’. If you watched the 2021 Oscars you’ll know that Regina is living up to her name and making waves in Hollywood.
In her long and brilliant career, Regina King (50) has always delivered, no matter what role she sunk her teeth into, whether stepping into the shoes of a bold woman like Sharon Rivers in If Beale Street Could Talk or flexing her director’s muscle in some of the best television shows and movies, like Scandal and One Night in Miami. The four-time Emmy Award winner has cemented herself as one of the hardest working performers in Hollywood. Regina will grace our Netflix screens again later this year, starring alongside Idris Elba in the Western The Harder They Fall. And she’s working on a film adaptation of Image Comics’ Bitter Root, which is a series of books about a family of monster hunters. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she’s also on the shortlist of directors for the upcoming DC Superman movie.
THE ACTING BUG BIT EARLY
As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, California, Regina took acting lessons, which soon shone a spotlight on her natural gift. At the age of 14 she was cast as the daughter of the main character in the TV sitcom 227, which had a five-year run. Then came a role in the 1991 hit Boyz n the Hood. But her role in Jerry Maguire (1996) really made people sit up and take notice of her extraordinary talent. She scored bigger roles in How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Enemy of the State in 1998, and her role as Ray Charles’s lover in Ray in 2004 won her rave reviews. ‘I’ve tried to listen to the voice inside from a very early age,’ she said in an interview with Essence.com. ‘I was able to understand that when things don’t feel quite right, that’s probably not the role for me.’
THE OSCARS AND THAT DRESS
In April, she opened this year’s Oscars in LA wearing a spectacular Louis Vuitton gown. Designed by creative director Nicolas Ghesquière and sporting 62,000 sequins and 3,900 crystals, it took 140 hours to make. Jawdropping would be an accurate way of describing it. Looking every inch the powerhouse, Regina joined the cast of One Night in Miami, which she directed and which received two Oscar nods, for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. The film also scored her a nomination for a Golden Globe for Best Director. That wasn’t to be, but it did bag her Best Director at the 2021 African-American Film Critics Association awards.
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ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI & COVID-19
Filming of One Night in Miami began in January 2020, just as Covid-19 was about to shut down the movie industry. It’s a fictional account of one epic night, on which four iconic Americans get together and chew the fat over the roles they played in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, that fought for equal rights for black Americans. The four are human rights activist Malcolm X, boxer Muhammad Ali, footballer Jim Brown and musician Sam Cooke. As it turned out, when the film was nearly in the bag, with just a couple more scenes to shoot, the world was shaken by the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who was gunned down by three white men in Georgia, and the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
“I’ve tried to listen to the voice inside from a very young age.”
BLACK LIVES MATTER
The Black Lives Matter campaign was born, and Regina realised the timing of the movie was nothing short of uncanny. ‘That kind of lit a fire under it,’ she said. ‘We always felt like this film would be timely, but we couldn’t have predicted the powder-keg moment that was going to be coming. I was just like: ‘Oh, my God, we have got to finish this film and it needs to come out now. I have a connection. I feel we very rarely get the opportunity to see on screen black men portrayed the way I see them, and love them, and all of those things that make them who they are.’ The movie was released to rave reviews and Regina had established herself as a director to be reckoned with.
WOMEN POWER
She once said her biggest challenge would be to play the totally submissive woman, adding, ‘It takes a toll on you when you play someone who’s far removed from your personality.’ In her acceptance speech at the 2019 Golden Globes for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk, she stunned the audience by refusing to leave the stage on cue. Instead, as the orchestra struck up to signal her exit, she held firmly onto the microphone and told the audience that within the next two years she would ensure that every project she produces would be staffed by 50 percent women. The audience rose to its feet and Hollywood hasn’t been the same since.
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CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE
Credit must go to Regina’s mother, Gloria, who played a huge role in her life. ‘I learnt a lot from my mom,’ she said. ‘My best lesson: remember there is no such thing as a certain way to parent, and you are learning along with your child – it’s okay to make mistakes.’ She can’t have made too many of them. Her son, Ian Jr, is her biggest fan. At the Golden Globes he said, ‘She’s just a super mom… She doesn’t let bad work days or anything ruin the time that we have, so it’s really awesome to have a mother… who I can enjoy spending time with.’
PARENTING WITH INTEGRITY
Regina was married to Ian Alexander, former vice-president of Warner Bros, for 10 years. Ian Jr (25), was 11 years old when Regina filed for divorce in 2007. She has been searingly honest about the divorce and her role as a mother. She’s opened up about the difficulties she and Ian Sr went through before deciding to bury the hatchet and work as a team, for the sake of their child. She said in interviews that she stayed in her marriage because she wanted to provide her son with what she thought was the stable family life a child should have. ‘But that isn’t always the best way,’ she said, adding that it was only when she took her son to therapy that she realised this. Recalling a time after the divorce, she said it suddenly hit her that she and her ex ‘were sitting on opposite ends of the stands at one of Ian Jr’s basketball games… because of our issues, Ian was becoming the kid whose parents were so disconnected that they couldn’t even sit next to each other, let alone have a civilised conversation. I had been that kid once, and it wasn’t fun.’
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CO-PARENTING
At that very basketball game Regina asked her ex if they could get past their differences for the sake of their son. Today, the two of them are making co-parenting work. ‘It wasn’t easy, but we started putting in the work it took to find our way back to a friendship,’ she wrote in an essay on Essence.com. Not one to be grudging with praise, she added, ‘But even if we hadn’t come back together – as friends or as parents – I never had any doubt about his role as a father… he was front and centre for Ian. That’s the kind of father he’s always been.’ Clearly a woman who’s as big in real life as she is on the screen.
REIGNING QUEEN OF HOLLYWOOD: REGINA KING
Reviewed by Michelle Pienaar
on
July 23, 2021
Rating:
Reviewed by Michelle Pienaar
on
July 23, 2021
Rating:
