While One Night in Miami isn't Regina's first time directing — she's directed episodes of Scandal and This Is Us — it is her feature directorial debut. "If you came to this planet from Jupiter and you watched [Regina] on set, you would not know that her path to directing was through acting. She speaks so many of the languages of filmmaking as beautifully as the acting part," Kerry Washington previously told Vanity Fair, and she's right. You can tell One Night has the deft touch of an actor to it, from the close-ups that highlight each actor at their character's most vulnerable moments to the long shots that build up tension.
Not only does she have an eye for detail when it comes to shooting a film, but her prowess also extends to choosing the right project, for the right cast, at the right time. "There were so many things about [the screenplay] that spoke to me just as a Black woman . . . getting to see Black men have a private discussion publicly and to see men so layered," she previously said at the Power Women Summit 2020. She became the first Black woman director in the Venice Film Festival's history for a reason.