Regina King is one of Glamour’s Women of the Year

Regina King has had a banner year for her work as an actress and director. In September, she became the first Black woman director in the 87-year history of the Venice Film Festival to have her work screened; the film in question is her Oscar-buzzworthy film One Night In Miami. Not long after, she won her fourth Primetime Emmy award in the Lead Actress category for her performance as Sister Night, a.k.a. Angela Abar, in HBO’s Watchmen. Now, Glamour Magazine is honouring all that she has achieved with a virtual cover story and naming her one of their Women of the Year.But Regina wouldn’t be Regina if her thoughts and empathy weren’t situated on the state of the world at large, rather than herself. In the cover story, she talks about her successes being “bittersweet” as the agony and suffering of Black people at the hands of police, and also of the Black Lives Matter movement has been on her mind.

Long may she reign. ? @reginaking is one of this year’s Glamour Women of the Year. https://t.co/P3dqt032y1 #GlamourWOTY pic.twitter.com/plK0DymUXa

— Glamour (@glamourmag) October 13, 2020

[video_embed id='-1']RELATED: Regina King reveals why representing Breonna Taylor at the Emmys was so important to her[/video_embed]“I’ve got to believe that a phoenix is going to rise as all of this s**t burns down. I say that and I’m including everything from the climate changing to the pandemic. It’s just so much. It’s so much and it’s all happening at once,” she said of her hope for change.“For that to be the case and all of this to be going on is bittersweet, sobering,” she said, adding that One Night In Miami has been a blessing during this time. “I’ll tell you one thing, though: I am grateful that the universe brought this movie to me, because it does make me feel like through art, we—when I say ‘we,’ the filmmakers, everyone that had something to do with this story—have an opportunity to put something out that feels like we are being active, that we are activators.”

 

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Regina King—long may she reign! This September, King became the first Black woman director in the 87-year history of the Venice Film Festival to have her work screened. Weeks later, she accepted her fourth prime-time Emmmy (she’s also the favorite to become the first Black woman nominated for the “Best Director” Oscar). In the middle of one of the most rewarding periods of King's career and an unprecedented crisis in the world around her, the actor and director is stepping into the spotlight—and her power. Link in bio to read about this Glamour Women of the Year nominee. #GlamourWOTY Writer: @sorayamcdonald Photographer: @emmanmontalvan Stylists: @waymanandmicah Hair: @larryjarahsims Makeup: @makeupbylatrice Production: @viewfindersnyla

A post shared by Glamour (@glamourmag) on Oct 13, 2020 at 5:31am PDT

“I feel like there’s no mistake that the subject matter of this film is what it is and coming out at this time. I do feel that we were all designed for a moment. I mean, not designed just for one moment, but this moment we were supposed to all come together, everyone on this project, because this moment was so much bigger than One Night in Miami.”Earlier in the year, Regina spoke about her fears for her son, a Black man, driving around town with the very real possibility of police brutality befalling him. In Glamour, she also touches on allowing herself to feel through the trauma and being honest about her emotions.The actor also wonders whether people would have been paying attention to social injustice and violence against the Black community without a pandemic, and reflects on the hope that she feels with the world finally listening. She finishes the interview moved to tears:“You hate to look at them as martyrs, but if Jacob Blake hadn’t happened, would everything have calmed down? Would people have stopped making noise?”"‘If there wasn’t another,’ but it’s so painful when it is another. It took cell phones with cameras to happen, to be in effect, for people to start believing it, and then years of cell phone footage. I mean, Rodney King wasn’t cell phone footage, but shit. Rodney King was the first on camera, but we all know somebody that got beat down before Rodney King. Then our parents knew someone, and their parents. I am believing that because it’s all here for everyone right now, I’ve got to believe that we’re at a place that as the world we’re hearing all the time, we’re at our true reckoning.”One Night In Miami is an adaptation of the eponymous Kemp Powers play, which follows Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali), Jim Brown, Malcolm X and Sam Cooke through a night of celebration, conflict, and political epiphany after Clay beats Sonny Liston to win the world heavyweight boxing championship title.[video_embed id='2045716']BEFORE YOU GO: Young girl says best words a parent can hear at school pick up[/video_embed]