While you might know Regina King from all her great work as an actor over the past three decades, she’s about to be known for something else: filmmaking. While she's been directing television since 2013, she's behind the camera on her first feature film with One Night in Miami, which was based on Kemp Powers' award-winning play and is one of the best films of the year. If you haven’t seen the trailers, the film imagines a fictional night in 1964 where Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) discuss race, religion, and their personal responsibility to the civil rights movement. Loaded with some of the best performances you’ll see in a movie this year, I cannot recommend this film enough.

With the film now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, I recently had the chance to speak with Regina King. She talked about if she had reached out to any director friends prior to filming One Night in Miami, the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, and what kind of project she’d like to do next.

Check out what she had to say below and further down the page is exactly what we talked about followed by the official synopsis. For more you can read Matt Goldberg’s glowing review.

Regina King:

  • Did she reach out to any director friends prior to filming One Night in Miami?
  • The impact of the Black Lives Matter movement.
  • What would she like to direct next?

Here's the official synopsis:

On one incredible night in 1964, four icons of sports, music, and activism gathered to celebrate one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. When underdog Cassius Clay, soon to be called Muhammad Ali, (Eli Goree), defeats heavy weight champion Sonny Liston at the Miami Convention Hall, Clay memorialized the event with three of his friends: Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge).Based on the award-winning play of the same name, and directed by Regina King, One Night In Miami... is a fictional account inspired by the historic night these four formidable figures spent together. It looks at the struggles these men faced and the vital role they each played in the civil rights movement and cultural upheaval of the 1960s. More than 40 years later, their conversations on racial injustice, religion, and personal responsibility still resonate.

one-night-in-Image via Amazonmiami-2
Image via Amazon