Regina King: I am in a place now where my faith has really been challenged

Regina King is still promoting Shirley, where she stars as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for president. Regina produced the film and she was one month into filming it when her son Ian Alexander Jr. died by suicide. The production was paused and eventually Regina came back and completed filming. This promotional tour is her first time giving interviews since Ian’s passing and every single interview has been gut-wrenching. Regina took more than two years away from the Hollywood grind but she’s ready to talk and everyone is ready to listen. She covers the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar. Some highlights:

Her faith has been challenged: “I feel like I am in a place now where my faith has really been challenged. I don’t know that I should say this, because I feel like it’s where I used to be, but that idea that what you put into it is what you get back—it’s been proven to me that that’s not necessarily true. When I look at all of the work and everything that we and Ian put into trying to move through the depression…I mean, he’s pure joy and pure light. But he was struggling so much. We knew. We knew what we were going through, but he never presented that way. That’s why I know that a smile doesn’t always mean happy. He would never not let whoever he was with feel like they were the most special person in the world. So for me, I’m like, ‘Man, he was putting a lot into things, a lot into people, a lot into this world, and yet it wasn’t translating back.’”.

She would do it all over again: “If I was told, ‘Do you want to do this again, but it’s going to be exactly the same?’ I would say yeah, just because of how much Ian gives me. But right now, it is me trying to better understand this new relationship with Ian that the universe has chosen. We always talk about spirit: They’re always with us in spirit. But his physical absence is so loud that it’s hard to sometimes tap into that spiritual connection.”

Grief is a process that doesn’t have an end. “One of the things I’ve learned on this journey is that gratitude and sadness are not mutually exclusive; they’re always working at the same time. I just have to navigate this. Sometimes it’s minute by minute. I’m aware when I talk to other mothers—and I hate that we share this because I feel like I don’t want anyone to share this, but because we do share it, they have just taught me so much. Having those women in my life reminding me of the importance of not isolating—because it’s really easy to isolate, especially when the majority of people in the world have no idea whatsoever of this level of grief. But talking to women who are like, ‘It’s not going to go away.’ At least I know that.…One thing that I feel like every mother that I talk to feels like is that no one could have prepared me for this. No one told me this part. There’s something about them, 11 years, 12 years later—the grief is still there. So at least I know. I do know that. And I think even without them telling me that, I feel that inside. I think they just confirmed that for me. I read somewhere that grief is love with no place to go, and I was like, ‘Huh…yeah…that does sum it up in some way.’”

She managed to complete filming on ‘Shirley’: “I know Ian would have felt like if I didn’t finish something because of a choice that he needed to make, then I wasn’t honoring him. We all landed at the finish line on Ian’s wings. He guided us there.”

On Shirley Chisholm: “We’d both had too many experiences where friends had never heard of Shirley Chisholm. We all know women who roll up their sleeves and are able to go toe-to-toe with men—Black women. We know they exist, but we don’t get to see them out in the storytelling space,” she explains. “Shirley understood the game of politics, even though people’s lives were not a game to her.”

[From Harper’s Bazaar]

This gutted me: “I would say yeah, just because of how much Ian gives me.” I’ve cried every single time I’ve written about Regina. This poor woman, my god. Since she wrapped on Shirley, she hasn’t been in front of the camera as an actress. It’s been over two years, and in this interview, she talked a bit about how she doesn’t really know if she’ll ever return to acting. But she still wants to work – as a producer and director. She recalled attending this year’s Governors Awards and presenting Angela Bassett (her good friend) with an honorary Oscar and Regina thought to herself, “That’s what I want to do. I want to find the next role for Angela.” Throughout this piece, there are several actresses, producers and directors quoted and you can just feel the love and support across the board for Regina.

Cover courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar, additional photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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