Regina King on Promoting Diversity at Cannes Film Festival
Regina King Is "Shining a Light" on the Need For More Diversity at the Cannes Film Festival
Regina King is championing the fight for diversity in Hollywood, starting with the Cannes Film Festival. During an interview for the Kering Women in Motion Talk in France on 16 July, the director and Oscar-winning actress expressed the need for more representation across the film industry as a whole and how she plans to lead the conversation through her work as a director. "We do have a ways to go but part of it is going to be, even though the audience doesn't want to hear it, the conversations have to continue," she said.
"Don't let your fear silence you. Ask questions and listen to the answers."
The If Beale Street Could Talk star also pointed out that directing nods for this week's Emmy nominations were down 10 percent compared to last year, with women making up only 11 out of 47 nominees for this year's directing categories. When asked what her advice for a young woman or artist interested in pursuing a career as a director would be, Regina urged: "Don't let your fear silence you. Ask questions and listen to the answers . . . It's really important to have pointed questions and listen to the answers and never feel like there's such thing as a dumb question. The dumb question is the one that wasn't asked."
Regina, who made her feature directing debut in 2020 with One Night in Miami, knows the road to change isn't easy, making the fight for more diversity in Hollywood even more crucial. "There's no such thing as being fully prepared," she said. "There's never enough time so pick your battles wisely because you don't want to waste your time arguing about something that's not the most important thing or that's not going to move the story along."
The push for equal recognition of women in Hollywood is ongoing, but Regina looks forward to seeing future generations of women filmmakers tell their stories and expand on the need for diversity by sharing their talents with the world. "We have to keep shining a light on the fact that things aren't reflective of what the rest of the world looks like, especially in America," she said. "That's our export to the world — movies. We have to continue to want to see stories told by and from different perspectives." Watch Regina's full interview here.
