 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
              
|
 Regina King is looking for variety in her roles Friday, February 16, 2001 By Ron Weiskind Post-Gazette Movie Editor
NEW YORK -- "Although I'm only 30, I have actually been working for 16 years," says Regina King, who plays Chris Rock's love interest in the movie "Down to Earth." But she seems to have the wisdom of the ages regarding her career and the film industry.
As a teen-ager, she was featured on the TV sitcom "227." She made her film debut as Shalika in "Boyz N the Hood." Her biggest gig until now was as the wife of Cuba Gooding Jr. in his Oscar-winning "show me the money" performance in "Jerry Maguire." She played Will Smith's wife in "Enemy of the State." But she knows that playing wives only takes you so far.
"They called me to be Sam Jackson's wife [in the movie "The Negotiator."] Don't get me wrong, Sam is incredible, but don't you think I should be his daughter?"
In "Down to Earth" King plays the woman Chris Rock falls in love with. The only problem is that he died before his time and, while trying to correct the mistake, the gatekeepers in heaven have placed him temporarily in the body of an old white millionaire whom she despises for his heartless business practices.
The audience sees Chris Rock and, obviously, so did King while making the movie. But, she says, "I definitely had to keep reminding myself that I'm looking at this middle-aged man. But I reacted to everything as if Chris was actually saying it, because that's who I was falling in love with.
"She is just a special woman, isn't she, that she can look past the exterior," she says. "There's no way of not getting this message across with 'Down to Earth.' "
She calls Rock "a very brilliant comedian who does not do things for the laugh. He just happens to have a really funny perspective on things. Just being able to sit down and talk to someone that likes to talk and not just about himself. You're actually having a conversation. You're not being talked at or rushed through. That was nice. That's nice to experience from the opposite sex, period."
King says people recognize her for one role or another, but "they won't realize I'm the same person who was in 'Boyz N the Hood' and 'Jerry Maguire' and 'Enemy of the State.' That's pretty great to think I've changed enough from character to character.
"That's the beauty of being a character actress. I wouldn't necessarily say I want more fame, but I definitely want to work more, so it comes along with it.
"I've never been one certain thing. 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."
King credits her ability to land a variety of roles to "luck, and blessed enough to have a husband who works so I can be more selective with the roles that I choose."
She would like to do a film about "all the different relationships that women have with each other. When I think about the conversations I have with my mom, my sister, my friends, it's just so funny and there's so many different levels to them.
"If no one else writes it, I'll have to," she says. "It would be me taking maybe a year out of my life, making a conscious effort to document the conversations that I have and that I hear other women having, and just making it into a movie.
"I think it would be a really interesting thing to see. And also, I know it would break so many language and color barriers. There's so many things just as women that we do no matter what your culture is and what you talk about."
Speaking of barriers, are movies becoming more colorblind as we enter the 21st century?
"We're trying to get to that point. Are we reaching it? No. Hopefully we'll reach it during my lifetime. Slowly but surely you're starting to see that more. But I would like to see art imitate life a little bit more. ... It's much more diverse in real life than it is on TV or in the movies.
"The studios are starting to believe in their audience a little bit more. I think the studios for so many years have not given the audience the credit that they deserve."
Still, she recognizes, "You are only as big as your last movie. John Travolta -- great actor, but some bad choices. I think that's part of the talent, knowing how to read a script and knowing what's good for you."
Does Regina King sound like someone who should be producing movies and not just acting in them? Guess what? She's co-producing a project called "My Tribe is Lost," a coming-of-age story set about growing up in Chicago during the growth of the civil-rights movement.
"I want to eventually direct, but nowhere in the near future. It takes so much time away from your family and your personal life, and I am nowhere near ready to commit that time. I can half-ass do it, probably, but why do something if you're not going to be able to totally commit?"
Brains, beauty and talent? Show her the money.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
