Why Oscar winner Regina King almost passed on 'Beale Street' — her first film in 10 years
Regina King’s moving role in If Beale Street Could Talk just won the veteran actress her first Oscar, but it’s one that she almost didn’t take.
As King arrived at the Academy Awards ceremony, she told Yahoo Entertainment that she hadn’t had a film role in 10 years when the project came her way, but that she had seen something special about it. Barry Jenkins’s movie is based on the late James Baldwin’s 1974 book of the same name.
“Honestly, I had finished [Netflix TV drama] Seven Seconds when this came my way, but Seven Seconds hadn’t come out yet, but that was a heavy role as a mother, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to play a mother at all.’ I told my agent, and then this comes my way.”
So King ended up reading the script, then the book, and then met with Jenkins. She was in.
“This is a film I want to do after not having done film for a while,” King said she realized.
She gave in and took the role that landed her her first Oscar nod — and now win.
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