Regina Hall on the phenomenon that is 'Girls Trip,' 'Due North' and making Black women proud (EXCLUSIVE)

Regina Hall is just getting started. The veteran actress burst onto the scene nearly two decades ago in Malcolm D. Lee’ iconic film, The Best Man. Since then, she's been in everything from the Scary Movie franchise to Black-ish. However, the smash success of her the $100 million marvel Girls Trip – another Lee flick, has propelled the extremely busy actress back into the spotlight. “I've been really blessed, and I've always worked a lot,” Hall told me when I asked her if the success of Girls Trip has triggered new roles for her. “I'm not the most social media visible person, even though I do have a page. Maybe people don't know what I'm doing in between stuff. It was great and consistent before, and yeah, I think maybe my options continued to grow, but I think it's been good and it's staying good thanks to (Girls Trip)." The first time the Insecure actress had even heard of Girls Trip was two years ago. She and producer Will Packer were on an airplane headed to New York for another project. Packer asked her opinion about an idea he had for a film where four friends go to Essence Fest. “Honestly, I was like, ‘What?’," Hall told me reflecting back on that initial conversation. “I didn't know what that was going to be, but I thought about four women going to Essence Fest, and I knew it could be good.” It didn’t take long for Packer to set his plan in motion – bringing on Lee to direct and calling Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver to write the script. “I think a year later there was a script and then we were on set," Hall remembers. “So, it all was a culmination of a perfect storm.”

Now that the critically acclaimed R-rating comedy has grossed a massive $130 million plus at the box office, Hall is still reeling a bit from the insanity that was this past summer. It’s all been an incredible ride for the Naked actress – but it’s also been shocking in some ways. “You never know what a movie is going to be, how it's going to go from paper to an actual film," she said thoughtfully. “I knew that we had a lot of fun. I mean, we laughed a lot. I knew that me and the girls had really created a deep connection and bond, and I knew that part was real. Then the rest you hope for. I don't know if my expectation was where it ended up being, but it was an amazing and wonderful surprise. I think we were just really happy that women who watched it enjoyed it. I think that was what I thought about the most. Even though it was an African American led movie — I wanted all women to receive it and love it, and I wanted Black women to be proud."

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'Girls Trip' scribe Tracy Oliver talks writing for Black women and being committed to the grind

Tracy Oliver knew that she had something special when she and Black-ish creator Kenya Barris finished the script for Girls Trip. “I'm not shocked,” she explained to me referring to the massive success of the film. “I knew what we were making. I was on set. Everyone just put together the film, including the cast — every part of it was so magical. I was like, 'This is going to do well.' What I didn't know was that it was going to break records. I didn't know that it was going to make over $100 million domestic. That's really, really rare, and really hard to do. There are movies with all white casts that are not hitting $100 million.” The South Carolina native has spent her career writing for and about Black women — and she’s not about to apologize for it. Like many of us –in the ‘90s Oliver was enraptured by all of the multifaceted stories of Black women that were available to us on television and in film, from Living Single to Love & Basketball. However, by the time the 31-year old hit her twenties – Black people had all but disappeared from the big and small screens. “I was really spoiled. Like a lot of people that grew up in the '90s, we had so much on television,“ Oliver said wistfully. “Then on the movie side, I loved Love & Basketball, Love Jones, The Best Man — those were my favorite things when I was growing up.”

In a moment it seemed like a switch had been flipped – all of these gorgeously textured stories simply vanished. “I can't tell you why people started believing that there wasn't an audience for Black content,” the Survivor's Remorse scribe reflected. “I don't know what the breaking point was, where Hollywood decided no more movies other than Tyler Perry. For almost a decade, there was nothing but Madea. I think that was really a bleak period for a lot of artists of color because it was like, that's fine an audience, but there's so much more to Black people and Black lives that we're not showcasing and not sharing with the world. I'm not really sure why that happened.”

During that time—Oliver was headed to Stanford University. An artist to her core, the actress, writer, and producer was quickly typecast. “I was basically getting cast as some version of Rizzo in Grease in everything, “ she said laughing. “I was always the cigarette-smoking, cool Black girl and I was like, 'All right, we're done.'" It was her mother who prompted the Stanford alum to stop complaining about her lack of opportunities and actually do something about it. “My mom is just not one of those people that is here for any complaining,” Oliver quipped. “She was like, ‘Well, aren't you at school? Can't you just learn how to write? If you don't like something, then you figure out how to change it. As long as you're auditioning for other people, that's what they're going to do. They don't have any obligation to cast you as anything other than how they see you.’”

The 31-year old took that advice to heart and she and her classmate Issa Rae teamed up to write and produce the acclaimed web series, The Mis-Adventures of an Awkward Black Girl. Oliver starred as Issa’s mean girl co-worker J on the show. It was writing that really sparked something in Oliver. “I really enjoyed the power and the creative freedom of directing and writing, more so than just performing because there's so much control that I have on this side of things that I didn't have when I was just a performer," she reflected.

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Raunchy & Real ‘Girls Trip’ Might Be the Best Comedy of the Summer [REVIEW]

Malcolm D. Lee just gets Black women. The nuances and intricacies of Black womanhood aren’t often considered in cinema, especially not in studio films. Much more complex than its name, Girls Trip takes its comedic cues from the best aspects of The Hangover and Bridesmaids while underscoring the specificities of what makes Black women unique. The Best Man director isn’t afraid to get hyper-specific or raunchy, and his choices pay off immensely.

Directing from a script penned by Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and screenwriter Tracy Oliver, four college friends reunite at the annual ESSENCE Festival in New Orleans after being apart for five years. Dubbed the Flossy Posse — married bestselling author Ryan (Regina Hall), divorced single mom Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith), celebrity gossip blogger Sasha (Queen Latifah) and the fiercely loyal but hot-headed Dina (Tiffany Haddish) converge on the vibrant NOLA streets for a long overdue girls weekend.

Girls Trip throws the middle finger to the myth of the Black Superwoman. Not one member of the Flossy Posse has it all together. Lisa is so consumed with motherhood that it takes her friends not so subtle nudging for her to rediscover her identity and sexuality. Formally renowned writer Sasha is barely making ends meet competing against The Shade Rooms and Perez Hilton’s of the world. Then there is Dina, who is determined to live her best life by being exactly who she is. Still, it’s Ryan’s life that might be the biggest façade of all. With her ex-NFL player hubby Stewart (Luke Cage’s Mike Colter) at her side and a new self-help book, You Can Have It All, we soon learn there’s a reason Ryan has avoided her girls for so long.

Read more at EBONY.com.

Interview: Kofi Siriboe Has Arrived

The first time I can recall seeing Kofi Siriboe’s face was when he starred as the menacing Flaco in Justin Tipping’s debut film, "Kicks.” In a narrative about inner city masculinity and the feelings of isolation and loneliness that often plague us during adolescence, Siriboe's Flaco radiated pain and rage. Amongst an entire cast of fresh-faced newcomers, he had clearly announced himself. Just a few months later, his face would be everywhere. Last summer, I was sent preview screeners for Ava DuVernay’s then highly-anticipated “Queen Sugar.” With a stoic gaze encapsulating grief and determination, Siriboe embodied author Natalie Baszile's, Ralph Angel Bordelon. He was transformed into a young father desperate to carve out a future for himself and his young son Blue, amidst the shackles that have choked formerly incarcerated Black men into submission. From the moment OWN began promoting the critically-acclaimed series with images of Siriboe dressed in all- white, seated next to Rutina Wesley and Dawn-Lyen Gardner who play his sisters, Nova and Charley respectively, it was clear that Siriboe had arrived in Hollywood. It’s been a whirlwind year, to say the least.

The second season of “Queen Sugar” is currently filming in New Orleans, Louisiana, but in the midst of a hectic shooting schedule, Kofi Siriboe and I took some time out to chat. For those of us looking from the outside in, it may appear that Siriboe was catapulted into the spotlight out of nowhere, but that's just not the case. The 23-year old chuckled when I referred to him as Oprah’s darling. He told me, “It didn't happen all at once. I didn't meet Oprah and Ava all at once. I met Ava first. A phone call came from Ava, and I got the job. Then I met Oprah at the table read, and we had an instant connection. But she's Oprah; I feel like she has that with everybody."

Still, it’s obvious that Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey saw something magnetic in Siriboe. His Ralph Angel is an even more robust and fleshed out character than the one you’ll find in Baszile’s novel. With the Black Lives Matter Movement and our eroding judicial system in the background, Ralph Angel is trying to manage different facets of himself, while raising a little Black boy in the present-day South. When analyzing his character's struggles Siriboe said, “Ralph Angel in being formerly incarcerated, and him being from New Orleans, him being a father; those are things that don’t actually pertain to me in real life. But wants to be his best self and is dealing with the duality of who he wants to be, and who he feels he has to be, through the eyes of the world and his choices, and through lack of identity. I feel like that's a universal challenge for any human being."

For Siriboe the "Queen Sugar" family has become much more than a workplace, and he speaks warmly of his appreciation for Ms. DuVernay and Ms. Winfrey who have nurtured his talent and taken him under their wings while treating him as a peer and respecting his artistry. “Queen Sugar" is set to return for its sophomore season towards to end of next month and there is bound to be a ton of change within the Bordelon family.

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