November 04, 2021

City News Service

 

Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress Regina King placed her handprints and footprints in cement in the forecourt of the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX in Hollywood, six days before her latest film, “The Harder They Fall,” begins streaming on Netflix.

In “The Harder They Fall,” billed by Netflix as a “New School Western,” King portrays “Treacherous” Trudy Smith, a gangster, thief and killer.

This film is the West seen through a Black lens,” co-star Delroy Lindo said. Director Ava DuVernay was among those on hand to watch King be immortalized in cement. King dabbed tears from her eyes during the ceremony.

“I’ve known this venue from just a little girl coming to the movie theater to going to premieres here,” she said. “Now I am a part of this space.”

King won a best supporting actress Oscar in 2019 for her emotional portrayal of Sharon Rivers, mother of the lead character Tish (KiKi Layne) in writer-director Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of the James Baldwin novel, “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

King won outstanding supporting actress in a limited series or movie Emmys in 2015 and 2016 for her roles on the ABC anthology series “American Crime,” and outstanding lead actress in a limited series or movie Emmys in 2018 for Netflix’s “Seven Seconds” and 2020 for HBO’s limited superhero series “Watchmen.”

Born Jan. 15, 1971 and raised in the View Park-Windsor Hills section of Los Angeles, King began her career as a cast member of the 1985-90 NBC comedy “227.” Her early film appearances included roles in the John Singleton- directed films “Boyz n the Hood,”“Poetic Justice” and “Higher Learning.”

King’s other film roles include “Ray,” “Jerry Maguire,” “A Thin Line Between Love and Hate,” “Enemy of the State” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back.”

King made her directorial debut for the 2020 film, “One Night in Miami…” a fictionalized account of the February 1964 meeting of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke in a room at the Hampton House, celebrating Ali’s surprise win over Sonny Liston that made him boxing’s world heavyweight champion.

King received best director nominations for the Golden Globe Awards and Critics Choice Awards.

Category: Arts & Culture