In a rare move, The Old Guard centers a dark-skinned Black woman in a big-budget action film
EXCLUSIVE: Billy Dee Williams Talks Returning To Lando Calrissian 40 Years Later & What He Really Thought Of Donald Glover’s Performance
Legendary actor Billy Dee Williams‘ history in the Star Wars franchise is unlike any other actor’s journey in the epic space opera. When Williams slide on Lando Calrissian‘s cape in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back — he became the embodiment of charisma and cool — proving that style and swag could also be otherworldly.
More than just defining the surface level attributes of his character — Williams also kicked open the door for Black actors in Stars Wars. With his turn as Lando, he became the first Black actor with a major role in the franchise. It’s something we did not see again until Sameul L. Jackson’s Mace Windu in the ‘90s and again in 2015’s The Force Awakens when John Boyega put on Finn’s Stormtrooper armor.
Now, nearly 40 years after he first brought Lando Calrissian to life — The Lady Sings the Blues actor has returned to the Star Wars franchise. His return marks one of the most prolonged intervals between portrayals of a character by the same actor in American cinema history.
Closing out the nine-part Skywalker Saga — Williams has the chance to bring his own brand of suave and wit to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Ahead of the film’s premiere — blackfilm.com got an opportunity to sit down and chat with the Mahogany actor about reprising his role after all of these years and what he really thought of Donald Glover’s take on Lando.
“I didn’t watch any of the old stuff to get back to Lando,” Williams revealed when asked about doing a character refresh with The Empire Strikes Back or 1983’s Return of the Jedi. “I just jumped right in.”
For the Batman actor, it was getting the opportunity to work with director/writer/producer J.J. Abrams again that convinced him to return to space. “I just have a lot of admiration for the young man,” he explained. “When I worked with George [Lucas], there was an opportunity to work with somebody extraordinary, and here again, I have the chance to work with somebody who is remarkable. We worked together on Lost — I played myself playing a killer — which I thought was a very interesting idea. I thought, ‘This guy is crazy — famously crazy.’ This has been a great pleasure for me coming back to do Lando. I didn’t believe that it would happen, I just wrote it off. I said, ‘I did what I had to do, and that was it.’ But, when I got the call from J.J. and even when we met, I just sat there, and I just chuckled because I thought this was a gift, so I’m a very happy human being right now.”
Continue reading at BlackFilm.com
Image: Disney
Priyanka Chopra Jonas Is Done Just Talking About Inclusion & You’ll Want To Join Her
Connections in the entertainment and beauty worlds can feel flimsy or superficial. There’s a certain beauty standard that women, in particular, are shown from birth and if we don’t fit that mold it can feel both isolating and damaging to our self-worth. Priyanka Chopra Jonas is determined to shatter the status quo. With her latest venture, as an ambassador for Obagi Skin Care’s SKINCLUSION initiative–Priyanka Chopra Jonas is done just talking about buzzwords and diversity measures. She’s ready to do the work.
On a sunny spring day in New York City, I sat down to chat with Chopra Jonas about Obagi’s SKINCLUSION and her stunning career that has crossed barriers in both India and the United States. It should have been intimidating to speak to one of the most well-known movie stars on the planet–but Chopra Jonas immediately made me feel at ease. Just days after the Met Gala, she sat poised and smiling in all white. Before the cameras began rolling, we spoke openly about our the origins of our names, mine–from the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria that was bestowed onto me a few weeks after my birth from my Lagos-born father and hers, deeply rooted in her South Asian roots. It’s stories like these that connect us all–making our differences feel much smaller then they might appear at first. Over the course of its 30-year legacy in the beauty industry, inclusion and connection have been at the core of Obagi skin care–which is why Chopra Jonas was so thrilled about connecting with the brand. The Quanticoalum uncovered a beauty industry secret that has been affecting her skin care regimen for as long as she can remember.
There is a spectrum called the Fitzpatrick spectrum which has reduced all of the skin tones into numbers, one through six. I’m a four. Most skin care products that you find on the market have done clinical research only on types one, two and three. I’ve spent so much money on high-end amazing products, which I now realize weren’t even tested on me. My skin has more melanin, it’s going to react very differently to the sun than someone else’s will. Why isn’t the beauty industry being called out? What I love about this campaign is that Obagi has been testing its products on all six skin types from its inception. So if they can do it, why isn’t the beauty industry doing it? It’s not just the optics but actually making the change on the ground.
Continue reading at STYLECASTER
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Deon Taylor Talks 'The Intruder' And Making the Films He Wants To Make
More than a decade after his feature film debut, Chain Letter, Deon Taylor is diving headfirst into the genres that first sparked his love of filmmaking.
In his new thriller, The Intruder, Taylor turns his lens on Annie and Scott Russell (Meagan Good and Michael Ealy), a married couple who purchase a stunning estate in Napa Valley from an older gentleman, Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid). Unfortunately, though the couple is determined to make the home their own, Charlie refuses to let go of the house--or of his obsession with Annie.
Ahead of the film’s premiere, Taylor spoke with Shadow And Act about moving from pro-basketball to film, The Intruder, and why he has never given up.
Taylor has always been interested in telling stories on film. However, —there wasn’t always a clear path for him to do so. That never deterred the Gary, Indiana native. Instead, he dug deep and gathered every resource at his disposal to begin making the films that ignited his soul.
"This script was one of the first scripts that I read, and I said, ‘This is me,’" he said. "I've always like[d] other people's scripts. However, being an independent artist, I've always been forced to write my own thing because I've been trying to find that one thing that speaks to me. I just liked everything about The Intruder. It was such a fun read, and it took me on a ride. It was the blueprint to a lot of the things that I really wanted to do film wise. I'm a rule breaker. Everything just really spoke to me as a blessing because David Loughery is such a great writer, a much better writer than me. But, it was just fun to read something that really sparked.”
Though screenwriter David Loughery didn’t initially have a Black cast in mind to portray Annie and Scott, Taylor knew this was an opportune time to put a spotlight on Black people in the thriller genre. "It was an opportunity to show a millennial couple that just so happens to be African American," said the Meet the Blacks director. "I loved that I could drop them in there and have them buy a $3.5 million house. Casting wise, they were all my choices. I've always loved Meagan and Michael and what was interesting about this movie was sometimes when you get ready to put together these types of films you wanna go after people that audiences recognize. Michael Ealy is such a strong, dynamic actor. I just feel like Meagan is just someone that I've been a fan of for a long, long time. I had never seen Meagan do this. I'm always trying to play someone against [a] type, which is what I did with Paula Patton in Traffik."
Continue reading at Shadow and Act.
Chinonye Chukwu Reflects On Her Masterfully Haunting Drama 'Clemency' [Sundance Interview]
Time can mean everything and nothing at all depending on your circumstances. For incarcerated people —specifically those on Death row, and prison employees responsible for ending lives, time is all-consuming. In her masterfully haunting drama, Clemency —director Chinonye Chukwu examines the lives of Bernadine Williams (Alfre Woodard)— a prison warden, and Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge) — a man on death row. Though Bernadine has worked tirelessly to maintain an emotional masque —one that has allowed her to direct the execution of 12 incarcerated men —her facade is beginning to crack.
With his death warrant signed —Bernadine finds herself drawn to Anthony, a man grasping on to the very last fragments of his sanity as death hovers around him. Just after Clemency's premiere at Sundance Film Festival, and before it won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, Shadow and Act sat down with Chukwu to discuss the unnerving story, and why she was inspired to write it in the first place.
"I was really inspired to tell the story the morning after Troy Davis was executed," Chukwu remembered. "Troy Davis was executed in September 2011, and hundreds of thousands of people protested against his execution, including some retired wardens and directors of corrections. They all banded together and wrote a letter to the governor appealing for clemency, not just on the grounds of potential innocence, but also because of the emotional and psychological consequences they knew that killing Troy would have on the prison staff who were sanctioned to do so."
Continue reading at Shadow and Act.
Mara Brock Akil And Salim Akil Talk Their Seductive New Show 'Love Is ___' With Series Leads Will Catlett & Michele Weaver
Love stories were made for the screen. There is a magic that comes with falling, diving in head first, and allowing yourself to become connected and enraptured with another soul. In romance films, the audience is pulled under quickly, caught up in the first mesmerizing moments of desire and lust. However, television allows artists and audiences to unpack the nuances of love. We are able to suss out the grit and imperfections that come with entangling two lives together. The enchantment is still there obviously, but there is also space for the reality of it all, the past relationships, finances, and the grind of daily life. Set in Los Angeles in the 1990’s, married Hollywood dream team Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil -- who've brought us series like, Girlfriends, The Game, and Black Lightning, present Love Is__. A love story based loosely off of their relationship, the gorgeously shot drama follows Nuri (portrayed by Michele Weaver) and Yasir (portrayed by Will Catlett). Told from the perspective of the couple twenty years into the future, wiser Nuri (Wendy Davis) and Yasir (Clarke Peters) reflect on their initial spark. At different points in the lives and careers when they first meet, the pair sees something special in one another. When they first connect Nuri is a new homeowner with a coveted position in the writer’s room on a new black sitcom, Marvin. Yasir, on the other hand, is struggling in LA. A recent transplant from the Bay – he's an aspiring writer/director who is trying to make his last two unemployment checks stretch as far as possible. A week before the Love Is__ series premiere, I sat in the OWN offices in Los Angeles to chat with the Akils, Catlett, and Weaver about bringing the sexy and rich love story to the big screen, what it was like to reflect back on the ‘90s, and why seeing Black love on screen is so healing.
https://youtu.be/ZgRXkypO5_Y
Continue reading at Shadow and Act.