Spotlight on actress Regina King

The actress talks about playing the role of her dreams – a secret superhero in Watchmen

COMPILED BY DENNIS CAVERNELIS

A DIFFERENT WORLD The Oscar-winning actress is lighting up the small screen right now as superhero Sister Night in the brand-new series Watchmen. The show has been described as a remix of the 1986 comic. It’s set in a world similar to ours but with outlawed superheroes and a history that’s taken a different course to ours.

A hoax alien attack ended the cold war, Robert Redford has been the US president for 30 years, black Americans are exempt from paying tax as a reparation for past injustices, cellphones were never invented, and cops wear masks to protect their identities from a rightwing terrorist group called the Seventh Kavalry.

Time magazine has hailed Watchmen as “the smartest superhero adaptation since Black Panther”.

COMPLEX WOMAN Angela Abar, Regina’s character, is a retired cop, a wife and mom who’s about to open a bakery, but she’s secretly a detective in the police force with the codename Sister Night.

“I’ve never seen this woman before,” says the 48-year-old of her character. “She’s so complex. You may have heard me talk about playing complex roles before, but she blew me out of the water.”

Growing up, Regina was a fan of the animated Spider-Man series and always wanted to be a caped crusader. “Sister waited until she was almost 50 to be a superhero. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, you know, be a woman physically kicking ass.”

REFLECTING REALITY The series “is using the current [political] climate to help tell the story,” Regina told the Washington Post. “In all honesty, of the other big things that are happening [in the USA] right now, I don’t know what really is bigger than [white supremacy].

“Everything is just bubbling up right now in real life. There’s no more hiding in plain sight. People are wearing their racism on their sleeves.” S