REIGNING KING
Emmy winner Regina King talks about her most dramatic role yet, as a mom whose son is killed
IT doesn’t seem like Regina King can scale any more heights in the expansive era of “peak TV.” After winning back-to-back Emmys in 2015 and 2016 for “American Crime,” the anthology series that cast a company of actors in revolving roles over its three seasons on ABC, she distinguished herself as one of the best actresses in the industry. Now, the 47-yearold actress delivers another understated yet powerful performance in the new crime drama “Seven Seconds,” which bows Friday on Netflix. The story is bleak and all too familiar. A 15-year-old black teenager, Brenton Butler, is riding his bike in New Jersey’s Liberty State Park one morning when he is hit by an SUV driven by Jersey City cop Peter Jablonski (Beau Knapp). Jablonski, at the advice of his superior officer, leaves Brenton for dead. But Brenton clings to life and the boy’s parents, Latrice (King), an elementaryschool administrator, and her husband Isaiah (Russell Hornsby, “Grimm”), a slaughterhouse sanitation specialist, keep vigil at Brenton’s hospital bedside, where King’s emotional depth takes hold of the viewer’s heart. Creator Veena Sud (“The Killing”), who used to live in Jersey City, was stricken by what her star gave to the camera. “There are no words, nothing for this actress to say,” says Sud, referring to a hospital scene at the end of the second episode. “It’s a beautiful thing when you imagine something as a writer and the actor makes it better. She just went there and stayed there.” King had some expert guidance. Sud’s dealings with the Hollywood chapter of the racial justice advocacy group Color of Change helped her connect King to mothers who have lost their sons to violence. “I was carrying a lot of people’s pain on my shoulders,” says King, speaking to The Post by phone from LA. “The couple of mothers I talked to, I didn’t want to exploit that. I thought, ‘[I have to] honor their pain, their experience.’ There are a lot of parents who never recover.” Brenton succumbs to his injuries on “Seven Seconds,” and the ensuing investigation into his death becomes a citywide scandal that rips apart the Butler family, although Latrice clings to the hope that her son did not die in vain. She treasures the simple times they shared, sitting in her car to hear the music they used to listen to when she drove him to school. King says the death of her 92-year-old grandmother, Loretta Forney, this past year, still affects her powerfully. “I remember simple things like smelling her gown, opening up her jewelry box, the smell that came out of her jewelry box, in such a lovely but sad way,” King says. “I knew her smell. But I won’t get to touch her skin [again].” While filming, King compensated for being in this “really dark place for a really long time” by frequently phoning her 22-year-old son, Ian Alexander Jr., who also lives in California. “[We] would have such random conversations, and he said, ‘It must be this show she’s working on.’ I needed to hear his voice just say regular s - - t on a daily basis,” she says. After three seasons of “American Crime,” it may seem unusual that King, who got her start playing lighter film roles such as Cuba Gooding Jr.’s wife in “Jerry Maguire,” chose another crime story, but the series’ take on police corruption made it a no-brainer. “They’ve all been shows with subject matter that is difficult to talk about, difficult to watch,” says King, referring to both “Seven Seconds” and “American Crime.” “I have the opportunity as an artist to use my art to evoke conversation that will make people who don’t normally talk about things with each other talk about things with each other.”
Her next project is the long-awaited adaptation of James Baldwin’s best-selling 1974 novel, “If Beale Street Could Talk,” about a wrongfully imprisoned young man.
Besides getting to work on “Beale Street” with director Barry Jenkins, whose “Moonlight” took the 2017 Oscar for Best Picture, King had the privilege of shaking hands with Baldwin’s family members when they came to the set.
“I met his sister and his aunt and one of his nephews. They were great,” King says. “It was like meeting my own cousins.”
Whether or not a third Emmy comes her way for “Seven Seconds,” King, who was born in Cincinnati and raised in LA, keeps the trappings of fame in healthy perspective. She views awards such as these not as game-changers but as markers on a timeline that, in her case, stretches back nearly a quarter-century through films such as “Ray” and “Enemy of the State.”
“I’ve been working hard for over 20 years now,” she says. “I’ve had the opportunity to be part of amazing projects. As great as ‘American Crime’ is, some of that momentum comes from ‘Southland’ [an NBC/TNT cop show she starred on that ran from 2009 to 2013] and the movies I’ve done. While there are opportunities, I feel it would be unfair to say it was because of one thing. I think the 23 years prior is the foundation.”