TIFF Press Conference: Debut Director Regina King (One Night in Miami…) on Breaking Ground, Being Black
By Linda Barnard
Regina King felt compelled to complete filming on One Night in Miami… and a global pandemic wasn’t going to stand in her way.
The first-time director told a virtual media conference at the Toronto International Film Festival ahead of the movie’s North American premiere Friday night there were three scenes left to finish when lockdown happened.
Unsure how to safely resume shooting, it seemed the drama’s release would be pushed back. But the spring deaths of Ahmaud Arber, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor made the task of finishing urgent.
“We were now in this powder keg moment,” King says.
When she approached Halifax-born Eli Goree, who plays fighter Cassius Clay and Leslie Odom Jr., who portrays singer Sam Cooke, they were both anxious to get back to the set, says King.
One Night In Miami… is drawing early critical praise since its September 7 world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where King made history as the first Black woman director to have a movie bow at the fest.
The drama is based on playwright Kemp Powers’ 2013 stage play and tells the fictionalised account of what happened when real-life friends activist Malcolm X, football star Jim Brown and singer Sam Cooke met with boxer Cassius Clay in a Miami hotel room to celebrate Clay’s heavyweight title win over Sonny Liston on February 25, 1964.
“TIFF is my favourite film festival. It’s bittersweet we can’t be there in arms together,” says King, who went on to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for If Beale Street Could Talk after its world premiere at TIFF last year.
She said she was drawn to Powers’ play as a ground-breaking “love story with a historical background,” told through the voices of legendary men.
“I had never seen conversations like this happen before, on the small screen or big screen,” King says.
Goree said he wasn’t out to mimic Clay, who changed his name to Muhammad Ali when he joined the Nation of Islam not long after winning the title bout. Goree credited dialect coach Tré Cotten, “one of the few young Black southern dialect coaches” with helping him develop Kentucky-born Clay’s accent.
Cotten also worked with Odom, who originated role of Aaron Burr in Broadway hit musical Hamilton. His singing as Cooke was so convincing, it fooled Goree, who thought he was listening to an original recording on set.
British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir, who plays Malcolm X, said he did intense preparation and read all he could about the minister and rights activist. He watched videos of his speeches “all day, every day.”
The actors talked about how the drama gives fresh insight into historical figures people may think the know well, but likely don’t know at all.
“These four men, most people would probably look at them and say you’re a movie star, you’re a singer, you’re a this, you’re a that and you’re living the life,” says Aldis Hodge, who plays football star-turned actor Jim Brown. “But they are still not removed from the effects of what’s going on to their culture within their country. They are still Black in this world. They are still Black in America.”
In the film, the four debate how they can use their status “to benefit our people, how can we use this to really help in the struggle,” says Hodge.
Asked if she felt like a trailblazer for being the first Black woman director to bring a film to Venice, King said she understands the significance of the event, but feels disappointed it took so long.
“In 2020 that this is a first in a festival that’s been happening for (88) years and I can think of so many films directed by Black women filmmakers that I just assumed were at Venice,” she says.