“It's a tough thing to wrap your mind and emotions around,” says the actress, director and producer who has worked for more than a decade to bring the story of glass-shattering politician Shirley Chisholm to the screen. He said so even after the incident. Tragedy two years ago. “Sometimes I find myself on autopilot, but I think the universe is about self-preservation. My body and mind are like, 'Okay, girl, let's do a little check.' And luckily I've been doing this for so long that that muscle is still there and I can activate it subconsciously. ”
What King has done over the years continues to amuse us. First she played the typical teenage Brenda in the 1980s sitcom 227, then in John Singleton's classic 90s trilogy Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice, In “Higher Learning,'' she played a typical erratic girl.
For many years after that, King was known as an energetic supporting actress (“Jerry Maguire” and “Ray”) who played leading roles. But she could not classify her. She played the voices of two smart-mouthed black boys in Aaron McGruder's animated satire, The Boondocks. In 2019, she won an Oscar for her role as her mother on a mission in “If Beale Street Could Talk.” The following year, she directed her first film, One Night in Miami. To cap off 2020, she won an Emmy for her starring role as Sister Night in HBO's dystopian superhero series Watchmen. Choosing correctly is the king's calling card.
However, things are different this year. She's different. King has remained at home since his son, musician and DJ Ian Alexander Jr., died in 2022. Filming for “Shirley” began several weeks before his death. Production finally ended after a hiatus. Then she put it on herself. Two years later, King is slowly re-entering the Hollywood vortex, trying not to get sucked into it. Her appearance during the 2024 awards season was both strategic and sentimental. She was there for director Ava DuVernay, Oscar winner Angela Bassett, and Oscar nominee Daniel Brooks.
“One, I show up for the art,” King said. “Second, because I show up for art that moves me. Third, because my friends show up for me. Fourth, because I was just starting to get back into that world. All of that felt like a space I could control.”
When I sat down to chat with King before a screening of “Shirley” at the National Museum of African American History and Culture this month, her former press junket muscles were just warming up. She had just presented at the Oscars just a few days earlier. The same week, she left for New York for an exclusive sit-down with “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts, and she was one of the first people to talk about Ian. It was a huge effort.
“I'm not going to lie,” King said, explaining how difficult the promotion is. She often salts her thoughts with phrases like “To be honest,” or “To be honest,” or “I strongly believe that.” For King, acting on her instincts is a career choice, and her diverse roles are mostly based on divine command.
The same goes for Shirley, the film that King spent 15 years making, depicting the Hail Mary of the first black Congressman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. This is a story of public and private affairs, and it eerily mirrors Dr. King's position. this moment.
“When I talk about her, it's [important] “Not only to show how wonderful and unique she was as a politician and strategist, but also to show her humanity,” King said. “She's trying to show that she's a woman and she has these emotions and all the things that come with being a spiritual being with her human experience.”
These were the bullet points that King and his sister Rayna, who made the film together under the Royal Tides banner, gave him when they tapped Oscar winner John Ridley as writer and director. . Ridley, who knew King from his time on the drama American Crime, asked his sisters what type of stories they wanted to tell. Was it a cradle-to-grave piece? A political drama? A story of immigrant triumph? They wanted a human story.
A work that centers on real women. “I think I choose the actors for the roles,” King said. “We may think we choose the role ourselves, but I think it's kind of destiny, you know?”
TKing first heard the name Shirley Chisholm when she was in fourth grade at Castle Heights Elementary School near Culver City, California. The actress commuted by bus from her home, about nine miles away, in an affluent black neighborhood in Windsor Hills. Probably around February. “As luck would have it, Shirley Chisholm was part of the Black History Month curriculum,” she said. She then ends up learning a little more about this groundbreaking lawmaker from her mother, who is her teacher. But that's not all.
“To be completely honest, it wasn't until my sister and I started researching to determine what parts of her story to tell that the story really started to sink in,” King said. Chisholm is not only the first black woman to serve in Congress. She was also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the only woman in the inaugural group. She introduced 50 bills in the House, including a successful expansion of the food stamp program and an increase in the minimum wage. She served another 10 years in Congress after a historic primary campaign to run for president.
Historian Zynga A. Fraser, a consultant on “Shirley,'' said the film provides a framework for Chisholm's empathy, saying, “Black politicians and Chisholm are clearly soft-spoken and sympathetic.'' I've never been put into that box,” he said.
“You can be fierce, bold, extreme, and sometimes angry, but you can also be soft-spoken, quiet, thoughtful, and strategic,” Fraser said. “This film gives audiences a 360-degree view of her as a black woman operating in the harsh world of the 1970s.”
Regina and Reyna came up with the idea of making a Chisholm biopic in the late 2000s. Chisholm's biopic was his first, despite his many accomplishments. Rayna suggested that King might have feelings for Ridley while filming “American Crime.” King came up with the idea while having lunch on set. “And he was like, 'Are you serious?'” Me? ' she recalled. But before it became Hollywood official, Viola Davis announced in 2018: she A biopic about Chisholm was being produced at Amazon Studios. King decided to resign him.
“She's just a genius. So I was like, 'Okay, if she does it first, it'll work,'” King said. “But I was still licking my feet.” But after that, Davis' Chisholm project did not move forward. King pounced. “We didn't look back at that point. I feel like Shirley called us.”
Chisholm's portrayal of Dr. King is taut and fiery. This lawmaker packs passion and righteous indignation in his perfectly coiffed hair and matching skirt suit. Although she is laser focused, she is loving. Demanding, but not noisy. The film shows little about her personal life, focusing instead on her candidacy for president in 1972. However, the relationship between Chisholm and her sister Muriel is portrayed as intimate.
Other actresses also auditioned for the role, but Ridley was unable to find anyone to play Chisholm's sister and reluctant supporter. When her director asked Rena, who hadn't done her acting since she was a child, her first reaction was “no.” Then she called Regina and asked for her opinion.
“Reina is my anchor. Reina is our anchor,” King said. “So, very selfishly, I thought, 'Can I just take off my producer hat and put on a wig?'” So her sister decided to go for it. “And Rayna was damn good. She killed it,” Dr. King said.
The sisters agreed that one scene was particularly difficult. Shirley is asking Muriel for her family's public support for her presidential bid. A reporter may call you and ask for a quote. However, over lunch at a Caribbean restaurant, Muriel was clearly convinced that he would not be in his sister's corner. She is embarrassed by her sister's ambitions. Shirley is left sitting there alone, hurt and limping, with a steely gaze on her. Of course she would continue. She's just doing it alone.
“That scene was the most difficult,” Reyna says. They were experiencing emotions that had nothing to do with the script. Almost 40 years later, the fact was that they were acting together not in the living room, but on the screen. Their movie will finally see the light of day. Ian, to whom “Shirley” is dedicated, was not there.
King sees this work as a gift, and even better doing it with her sister. After the release of Shirley, the director and producer will move on to two very different projects for Netflix. One is to produce and direct Forever, an adaptation of Judy Blume by Mara Brock Akil about two black teenagers who fall in love. Man in Full, starring Jeff Daniels, is based on the novel by Tom Wolfe. Her choices are never expected and never random.
“Sometimes you have to be strategic,” Reyna said of her sister's longevity. “Regina made some very wise choices, and sometimes those choices aren't easy, but they made her journey that much more lasting.”
A few years ago, King said she decided to only choose projects that touched her heart. “Every performance and everything I directed was born out of passion and excitement and genuine interest. I don't do it for testing purposes. A check is nice, but that's the first time I do anything. This is not the reason.”
This was especially true of the 2021 film The Harder They Fall, an all-black Western in which King plays the ruthless outlaw and traitorous Trudy. She had no idea about the film's director, James Samuel, before her first Zoom. But Samuel's excitement sold her. “We can either fail together and have a really good time doing something interesting and unique, which is almost impossible these days, or we can become something great.” King recalled thinking.
During filming, Samuel, perhaps still not believing he was lucky with his casting, asked King what he was thinking. She had just won an Oscar for “Beale Street,” and she didn't know him from Adam. What made you say yes?
King said simply. “I said, 'Well, Oscar isn't going to choose me. I choose for me.'