Hi, I am Regina King, director of One Night in Miami.
And I am joined today with the amazing cast of One Night
in Miami, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, and Leslie
Odom Jr. And IMDb has brought us here together
to talk about representation in cinema and television
and what it feels like to see ourselves or not see ourselves.
So here we go.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
For me, you know, you-- we really
didn't have much in film or TV that really had anyone
that looked like me, you know.
Maybe, you know Cooley High, but the main characters were men.
You just never really got to see girls--
Black girls-- as, like, the lead in something.
Black girls just aren't the leads, still to this day,
you know.
For me, there was a film that Maya Angelou wrote
called Sister, Sister that had Irene Cara, Diahann
Carroll, and Rosalind Cash that totally
moved me because I just--
I had never seen Black women interacting honestly and not
being the token woman in the story--
Black woman in the story, you know?
I'm tired of living with lies about how--
how good Papa was and how good this life was
and how good this house was!
Don't you dare!
Seeing them love on each other, argue--
it was very powerful.
And Rosalind Cash was just everything to me.
She was just so real, God rest her soul.
This made me realize, oh, wow.
OK, we can be actresses with different levels to it--
that not playing the same role.
That film was special for me and my sister.
You have your way, and I have mine.
You got that right.
You know, mine is probably--
I mean, it's complicated, because the legacy of--
the legacy of this work in light of the man who created it--
it's like it's all tied up in stuff now, you know?
But mine was The Cosby Show.
And what Bill created there and what
he created with A Different World, you know,
was very impactful.
Regardless of your degree, I am telling you,
they will think you know less than you
do because you're Black.
It's not enough for you to be equal.
You have to be better.
It did feel aspirational.
You know, the image of this very,
very upper-middle-class Black family was very manicured,
and it was very--
because we were fighting a different kind of narrative,
you know?
They were-- those works were being created
in opposition of certain awful images
out there about who we were as people.
But we're past that time now, and so we don't
need a Cosby Show for today.
That's exactly how I feel.
I feel like there was a--
I think 2002, 2003, something was happening, just--
I was 16.
There was this BBC drama called Out
of Control that really stuck with me
and resonated in a huge way.
You're a liar, you're a thief, and you're a junkie.
- Why don't you [INAUDIBLE] - Shut up.
I apologize--
--apologize?
[INAUDIBLE]
You spent all your life apologizing.
I was just glued because they were
filming in Queen's Crescent, where I'm from in Kentish Town.
The whole urban setting was, like,
literally my neighborhood.
And the characters were just people who I'd grown up with.
And like, the main character was this young guy
who ends up getting in trouble in his neighborhood.
But he's a really sweet soul.
And this thing blew my mind.
I went into school the next day, and I was like, boys, boys,
did you see that thing? Did you see that thing?
And everyone had seen it.
That was the-- my first experience
of really going like, wow, that's, like, where I'm from--
you know, being shown.
Why are you making such a big deal, come on.
It's a massive big deal 'cause he's a little thug.
I don't want you near him.
I grew up in the business, so I kind of saw myself--
literally myself.
I saw myself, like, on Sesame Street, you know?
(SINGING) Everybody saw hola.
Hola!
You know, I was like, ah, that's me.
So it was kind of like normal, you know what I'm saying?
But I think the first time I saw a performance where it sort
of my eyes up, and I was like, oh wow, like, you know, I
want to do a role like that, I think
it was Don Cheadle playing Mouse in Devil In a Blue Dress.
You think you're going to have trouble with that dude, Frank.
I can just run by, kill him and take
that evening train to Houston.
No, Mouse.
He was suave, but a little off the hinges,
and it was such an interesting character.
And also such a-- sort of a great
complement to Denzel Washington's character as well.
You going to do everything I say?
Man, I'm going to do everything you say.
That's the wrong hand, Mouse.
Oh.
It's just the way he played it.
I said, I want to do something interesting like that
when I grow up.
And, you know, of course, over the years,
you see less and less of yourself on-screen,
so it just drove me hard and motivated me more to maintain
and stay in this business, not even for me to get more jobs,
it's to open up more opportunities.
So you know, seeing myself becomes normal.
Hey, man, look, if you need somebody
to run them streets with you again, just give me a call.
Mine was also a Denzel-related film.
My mom took me to see Malcolm X when I was very, very young.
We didn't land on Plymouth Rock!
Plymouth Rock landed on us.
And then at the end, when they had the,
you know, I am Malcolm X, I am Malcolm X, with all the kids.
I'm Malcolm X!
It connected with me, and I'd never had that experience.
Hey yo, Eli.
Eli.
Yeah.
You know me and my brother were extras in Malcolm X.
Get out of here, bro.
So we were probably those little kids.
[LAUGHS]
So what you're saying, what you're saying is,
I inspired you from all those years ago.
For real, for real.
Yeah, man.
It's crazy.
It's still my favorite film to this day,
just because it meant so much to me at that moment.
I wouldn't tell you this if I didn't love you.
No, you wouldn't.
Those early Spike Lee films, those early John Singleton
films, of course Boyz n the Hood, which Regina was in,
which is so crazy.
[LAUGHS]
Those films made me really know
what it was to be a Black man.
Like to really know what it is to be Black
and to be masculine, and to be articulate, and to be artistic,
and to be creative, and to be celebrated, and to be cool.
You know?
Denzel made the Black man cool, you know?
And to make this film, it was amazing to be a part of a film,
that I think is of that same essence
that will affect another generation the way
that film and those films affected me.
It's-- it kind of gives you chills,
and it makes you feel, like, very grateful and very blessed.
The idea of tradition and generational blessings,
it's-- it's powerful.
This movement that we are in is called a struggle.
Because we are fighting for our lives.
On the subject of, like, representation
behind the camera in-- in film and TV, my experience of-- of--
of filming in the States and going into a hair and makeup
department for the first time, and there's just
people in there who understand how to cut my hair
and how to put makeup on my skin was something
that I'm only experiencing for the first time,
like, in the last year or two.
You know?
And the first 8 years of my sort of professional career in
the UK, it just doesn't exist.
And it's a real anxiety going in every time
I set foot on a-- you know, on a set in this country.
It's just not-- it's something that we
still haven't worked out.
And how it's not accepted that there
is, you know, a difference in hair texture and how--
like, unless you're cutting my hair all the time,
you just really have no business doing it.
So it's really important.
And I remember being really, really moved.
But like, I remember going into that truck for the first time
and just being stunned.
And I felt a sense of relaxation that that
gave me to, like, when I came on set to play,
it's a game changer.
And Wayne and the department that we had on this movie,
like, it really made me-- it makes me emotional.
And I was so grateful to have Wayne every day,
just like, just one thing not to worry about,
someone messing with my hair.
So, like, it's really-- it's really important, you know?
It's really important.
Like Kingsley was saying, yes, it is polarizing when you step
into a hair and makeup trailer.
I've been fighting this fight for a long time.
I've been working with my barber for like 12 years.
He just got in the union this year.
It's been-- we've been hustling that long
to get him in the union.
When you're trained as a cosmetologist,
you're not required to be trained
on certain different ethnic hairstyles and Black hair.
So you go in there, and they throw
a bunch of gels and mousses at you,
and you're sitting there looking messed up.
It's a couple of jobs I'll never watch, because I was busted.
[LAUGHS] You know.
Yeah, It is.
You know, and it can-- so I love what you're saying.
But I-- I love that Kingsley went there too.
There was a big movement at one of the studios
about that recently, and a bunch of women spoke to it.
They said, you have to understand,
this is how we start our day on the sets.
Yeah.
You know, so right from the beginning,
I don't feel welcome.
I used to-- the-- the same thing.
You know, all my-- all my white brothers
and sisters would get made up, get their hair
and makeup done at work.
I-- I would have to--
even on long shoot days and stuff,
I would have to go to the barber shop,
you know, the night before, at 11:00 PM.
Or if I could get my barber-- because they
wouldn't even let my barber in the hair and makeup trailer.
I can't tell you how many times I wanted to reach
out and punch somebody--
Then, then, then, then strike with the weapon
that you have, man, your voice!
Every underserved population always needs allies.
Kemp, first, with the script, you know, I felt that he
wanted to do something daring.
For reasons that we all understand,
there has been careful consideration,
even when we're telling our own stories, about how much truth
we're willing to tell and how much
truth we're willing to show.
Because we don't want to be further maligned.
We know that so few of us get through the door
that, you know, we don't want to make it harder for those of us
after to get through the door.
For many reasons.
And so to have Kemp write this script, to have Regina
at the helm, our job was only between action and cut,
to be as fearless as brother Malcolm,
you know, as bold as Sam, Cassius, and Jim.
Everything's not so black and white,
like you make it out to be.
I'd love to chime in on that.
As far as is it important to have
us represented behind the scenes, it absolutely is.
Because what I don't understand--
and I've spoken on this many times--
is how do you plan to tell an accurate story that involves
representing a culture with nobody
behind the scenes that has the experience of said culture,
right?
What I've come to learn over the last year,
especially, is that when there is a cultural shift
towards the attention of us, what people sometimes often do,
and-- and I feel like they commercialize
the Black experience by commoditizing Black pain.
But you have to put the right people in the right positions
to tell that story.
Because for us, it's not a trend.
We live with the consequences of said work.
So it is a calculated decision.
And whenever it comes to what we're doing,
oftentimes I do see the trend of people saying, well, you know,
this is, you know, this is hot right now.
Black people are not a trend.
And if you want to make money by displaying our stories,
you want to make money off of us,
you have to make money with us.
You know who gets paid more than the writer
of a song that hits number 94 on the Billboard Hot 100?
Hmm?
The writer of a song that hits number 1.
Sam, in that speech that Kemp wrote,
Sam is speaking about the power of owning all of his--
all of his music.
He did that-- without him doing that,
a Ray Charles wouldn't have done that.
So that's just a-- an immediate example of the necessity to--
in Malcolm's case, sometimes you've got to burn it all down,
and we've got to start from scratch.
And sometimes it's about approaching
it from an economic standpoint.
It's all situational.
You know, it depends on the situation which one you apply.
Both of them exist.
You know, I've been approached about hey,
you want to work on this? OK, cool.
What are you doing? Telling a Black story.
Great. You want to produce it?
Great.
Your executive board is all Caucasian.
Your writer is Caucasian.
My first producerial decision is for you to get a Black writer.
And most people say no.
But my question is why.
If you want to get a consultant for crime if you're writing
a crime story, you want to get a consultant for law
if you're writing a law story, why not have Black people
in the right positions?
Because it's not about exing everybody out.
There-- there is cohesion, and there's
room for everybody to play.
But when you want to write a story that's
about Black people, led by Black people,
you have to put the right Black people in the right positions
to make that story sing, hence the result
of One Night in Miami, having the right people
in the right positions.
Give him an autograph, Jim.
Actually,
Mr. Cooke.
[LAUGHS]
Oh, sure thing, brother.
Someone asked me the other day,
was it important that our director was Black.
Absolutely.
Why?
Because not only just Black, but the right person.
Regina, being who she is, knowing her experience,
when we want to shift, maybe a story point, a line,
even, to get to a certain place.
Because she understands what we're
trying to do, and the cause and effect,
and what we're trying to answer, what issue we're trying
to solve within the community, and what
we're trying to explain, because she knows that,
we can go there.
It's hard trying to explain that to somebody who
doesn't understand and wants to make a creative decision that
actually would harm the community because they don't
realize the consequences, because they don't have
to live with the consequences.
I think all of us here on this phone, on this phone.
[LAUGHS] On this Zoom, we all find ourselves always
in certain situations of--
of deciding how elegant we are gonna be or how, you know,
this is what it's gonna be.
And that is, I guess, the good thing
about where we are right now, when we talk
about how much hasn't changed.
What has, I think, changed is that we have gotten
to the place where we feel empowered to really speak
our minds right now and to not feel
like we need to apologize for--
for-- for-- how we feel.
[BELL]
We want a world-- [MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Speak now.
--where we're safe to be ourselves.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Speak now.