Regina King on the “Social Responsibility That Artists Have” and Her Well-Timed Directorial Debut

With so much of this year weighted as a historical moment—cliché but, by God, true—it’s refreshing to travel to another pivot point in time: February 25, 1964. One motel room plus four titans of culture equals a goldmine set-up for a directorial debut. That would be Regina King’s distinction, as the effusive reviews and awards buzz mount for One Night in Miami, which lands in theaters on Christmas Day. (It begins streaming on Prime Video next month.) Based on a 2013 play by Kemp Powers, who also served as screenwriter, the intimate movie dramatizes a real-life meet-up—complete with vanilla ice cream—between Malcolm X, soul singer Sam Cooke, football great Jim Brown, and the boxer then known as Cassius Clay, as they unspooled and tussled about race and responsibility. Clay, soon to be known as Muhammad Ali, had just claimed the world heavyweight title, but the evening otherwise kept the action to a simmer. The future, for all of them, was still malleable; change, as Cooke sang, was coming. 

For King to shape so nuanced, so human, a story is only fitting. She is another titan, having navigated such themes in her own way, most recently with award-winning performances in Watchmen and If Beale Street Could Talk. (The latter features the actor in one of the most quietly devastating beauty scenes in film.) 

To find King fronting a Vaseline campaign grounded in community support is little surprise. The partnership, called Equitable Skincare for All, acknowledges the blind spots in medical care; according to a 2011 survey, nearly half of dermatologists and residents felt underinformed when it came to skin conditions in Black and brown patients. To shift that ongoing reality, Vaseline and King are supporting education initiatives within the medical community; the brand has also teamed up with HUED, a health-care tech platform that connects people with practitioners who understand their cultural or personal needs. As King pointed out in a recent phone call, the backdrop of the pandemic only broadened the initiative’s reach, from much-needed PPE to community-level care. She unpacks those dovetailing themes, from film to contemporary protests, below.

Vanity Fair: There’s a moment in One Night in Miami where Malcolm X puts on Bob Dylan and wonders why this guy from Minnesota is writing protest music with greater reverb than Sam Cooke’s. How do you see that scene sitting against the backdrop of this year?

Regina King: Well, I think the thing that’s interesting is that the conversations and the things that they were debating—the social responsibility that artists have—are conversations that were happening long before ’64. They’ve been relevant conversations in the Black community; there has not been a time that they haven’t been. It’s just that now we’re in this moment where the country is watching—partially because we were in the middle of a pandemic when two high-profile murders by police happened.

We were all watching when the woman falsely called the police on the Black man that was a bird watcher. The world was watching, but we as a Black community have been seeing these things as long as we’ve been alive. So as far as relevancy, we could not have planned the powder-keg moment that we would have been in—that we’re in now—when it comes to that kind of uprising with social injustice. But when Kemp [Powers] was writing the film, when he was writing the play before that, when I read it, when the actors read it, everyone else involved read it—it was relevant in that moment.

What drew you to the project for your directorial debut? It’s so rooted in history and also in the humanity of the figures.

There’s so many things. Definitely the humanity that Kemp was able to capture with four icons—people that we look at as some of our greatest and brightest luminaries. To help us as an audience appreciate them as men, appreciate them as Black men, appreciate that they have fears and doubts as we all do, even though we put them on this pedestal. I’m speaking particularly about Cassius, just having those moments where he, a devout Muslim—[Powers] still showed him having a bit of trepidation in making that announcement. While we don’t have Muhammad Ali telling us whether that was actually his sentiment the day after the fight, when we watch the video of him making that announcement—when you look at his face and at his body language—you can’t help but to wonder. Just as artists ourselves, we can definitely relate to that anxiety you feel when you are about to make something very private public.

Has your experience with inequity in Hollywood attuned your eyes to what’s going on in health care? 

The pandemic sharpened all of our lenses on health care. Because of systems that are the way they are, you have more people who are Black and brown in those occupations that require them to have to expose themselves to a lot of people. I guess the best way to say it: For a lot of Black and brown people, they can’t afford to have a sick day. I’m not saying that that’s not the case for white people as well, but when you look at the numbers, it’s mind-blowing.

And there are oversights across the field of medicine, from maternal care to dermatology.

Absolutely. Vaseline, in the beginning of our relationship, partnered with Direct Relief, which was providing more of that PPE and access to clinics in underserved communities. I think it’s very important to know that Vaseline has not been making it just specific to skin care. They’re very much aware of the inequities across the field when it comes to medical resources.