Regina Rene King not only rules the heart of many but our television sets as well. In her recent interview for Glamour Magazine’s “Women of the year,” it is clear that the 49-year-old has come to shake Hollywood.
You may know her for voicing our favorite African American boys Huey and Riley Freeman on Boondocks or as Rhonda in a Cinderella story, but now, we see her truly for her individuality as an African American woman.
You can have a much longer career playing distinctively different characters than you can being just a sex symbol.
~ Regina King on not allowing herself to be pigeonholed
In 2020, despite it looking like a year crafted to crush on black people and our rights to live, Regina has rocked this year like a cruise with her multiple wins. So much so that she has begun to feel guilty about it.
A week after “One Night in Miami” –– Regina King’s feature directorial debut––made its world premiere in Venice, the mother of one accepted her fourth prime-time Emmy for playing Angela Abar / Sister Night in HBO’s Watchmen.
She accepted the award in a striking fuchsia Schiaparelli pantsuit, soft curls piled atop her head. Under her blazer, she wore a T-shirt that bore Breonna Taylor’s face, accompanied by the words “SAY HER NAME.”
But Regina’s advocacy for women didn’t just start this year. “I’m going to use my platform right now to say, in the next two years, everything that I produce, I am making a vow—and it’s going to be tough—to make sure that everything that I produce, that it’s 50% women,” King told the audience at the Golden Globe in 2019. She has kept that promise.
Here are 3 things Regina King revealed to Glamour Magazine…
#1. She is consciously trying to write black realities into everything she is doing
It is worthy to note that One Night Miami is a love letter to her only son, Ian Alexander, who is currently just two years younger than the main character of the film.
The movie tells a fictionalized story of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke, as the group celebrates Ali’s surprise title win over Sonny Liston in a Miami hotel room in February 1964.
#2. She models a type of leadership that relies on frankness
Actor Holly Robinson Peete says, “I sort of think of her as female Tom Hanks. You know, there’s no one that doesn’t love Tom Hanks. Regina is that person in this business where everyone is just constantly rooting for her.” And this is largely due to her leadership style, one that relies on frankness.
#3. She has not allowed herself to be pigeonholed
Early on in her career, she was offered a role as Samuel L. Jackson’s wife in the 1998 film, The Negotiator. It’s easy for an actress to be seen as just a sex symbol, she stated in a 2001 post-gazette interview.
“I’ve never been one certain thing,” she said in the same 2001 Post-Gazette interview. “Not until Halle Berry played Dorothy Dandridge did people really look at her as being a good actress. People just looked at her as being a beautiful woman. I’ve played very different people. You can have a much longer career playing distinctively different characters than you can being just a sex symbol.”
Read the rest of the story here.
Photos: Glamour Magazine | Emman Montalvan
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