Regina King on her New Netflix Film “Shirley”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, INTERNATIONAL HOST: Now, Oscar Award winning actor and director Regina King takes on the daunting task of capturing this American icon, and she’s joining Michel Martin to talk about it.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST, MORNING EDITION, NPR: Thanks, Christiane. Regina King, thank you so much for joining us.

KING: Thank you so much for having me.

MARTIN: You know, you’ve had this incredible career, Oscar winner, Emmy winner, actor, producer, director, all the things. What made this the project that you wanted to do at this time? Why this project? Why now?

KING: Well, it kind of worked out that the now ended up being perfect timing. But my sister and I, we started our production company about 15 years ago. And when we started, we were, you know, just talking with each other about what stories would we want to tell, what stories would royal ties put out into the world. And Shirley Chisholm was one that kept coming up for both of us because we both had experiences with other people that did not know who Shirley Chisholm was. And we just felt like she is so much a part of the American fabric. How is it that no one knows who she is? And it seems though everyone should know. And to think that — and I’m speaking of a lot of black people not knowing, we felt like this is a story that we — her story, we need to tell. And as we started doing our research, she’s so interesting and so fascinating and has lived so much life. It’s like, how can we get it all into a film?

MARTIN: How did you know about Shirley Chisholm? Because as you pointed out, a lot of people don’t know about her or didn’t know.

KING: I learned about Shirley, and just a touch of Shirley, during Black History Month. Luckily, I got a teacher who maybe I was, may have been in the third grade, fourth grade, who felt like Shirley Chisholm was an interesting person to talk about. I don’t know about you, but when I was in elementary school and in junior high, Black History Month, you have about two minutes a day for a different, you know, black person that’s done something great. And I got lucky one year where Shirley, you know, got two minutes on that day. And from there, my mother allowed us to have the opportunity to know more about her than that she was the first woman, black woman in Congress. That’s what we — what I learned in that class that day. But, you know, she told us about her running for president and that I was only one years old when it happened. And so, yes, that’s what made us familiar and made her name stick in our minds.

MARTIN: First black woman elected to Congress, first African-American person, first woman to run for president on a major party ticket. You know, Jesse Jackson used to have this saying, if you’re going to tell it, tell it all. Well, your film really does. It tells a lot. It talks about the fact that she was not universally loved and applauded, that she got a lot of resentment and not always from the people that you would think. How did you figure out how you wanted to play her? Because again, one of the things about the film that’s so striking is you really — you kind of show the complexity, not just of being the first or the first or one of the few or the only, but also being a woman in a male space. How did you decide how to capture all that?

KING: You know, honestly, Michel, I think it was living more life, because 15 years ago when we started out, like knowing that we were going to tell Shirley’s story, whether it was going to be a slice of her life or her entire life, I was not ready. I had not lived enough life. I can say that now. Then I would not have ever thought that. It was just, you know, we’re going to do this. You know, we’d even gone as far as to do a photo session with me and kind of photoshopped my head into images of her as we were putting together the package to go and get the financing for it. But I wasn’t ready. And just in that 15 years, having experienced more life helped me to understand that it was important for the world to see her with all of the complexities, the fatigue, the loneliness. You know, when you are a person that’s embarking on a journey like that, where there’s no blueprint, no one’s done it before you, that’s a really lonely path to go down. And the people, Barbara Lee — we got a Representative Barbara Lee, we got a chance to talk to, and Robert Gottlieb, who Lucas Hedges plays in the film, and her goddaughter, Maria, I got a chance to talk to these people who really knew Shirley. And one of the things that I did take away from talking to Barbara and Maria is that she always put on such a good, strong, you know, presentation of a politician, of a leader, but they always felt like behind the scenes there was a loneliness. And that made sense to me, seeing all of the things that she had accomplished, and in the spaces that she was moving. She was the only one.

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KING: I am running for president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of the United States? Holy — that’s — I mean, that’s right the hell on Mrs. C. I mean, that’s great. You would be the most amazing president that this country has ever seen. I mean, wow. That — if there’s anything I can do to help.

KING: Well, there is. I need you to be my national student coordinator.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m —

KING: Overseeing all the student organizations affiliated with the campaign and all the states where I’m on the ballot. Putting together campus rallies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mrs. C., I’m — I can’t.

KING: I don’t like the word can’t.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I know. But I —

KING: Robert this is the first year 18-year-olds will be able to vote in a national election. To get them to vote they need to know that using their vote can make a difference.

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MARTIN: Is there anything that you really struggled with that you thought was, wow, that really is crazy? I can’t even imagine what that was like.

KING: When I learned that during her run for Congress that she won, she was in the hospital with — having — had to have a tumor removed. And there was a lot of talk from her opponent that he was trying to make her small by saying, where is she, what — you know, little teacher from Brooklyn, you know, we don’t see her, we don’t hear from her. That this is who you want to represent you. And she never spoke about why she kind of had to step back from the campaign, but she pulled herself up, still recovering, came back in, fought the good fight, as she said, and won. And no one knew that. You know what I mean? No one — that was not part of her narrative. That was not part of her narrative. That was not part of her campaigning because if that was a man in that same position, and he — and the world knew or the district knew, it’d be like, oh, my God, he is so strong. That’s (INAUDIBLE). You know, but her, it would be like, oh, the feminine things that are happening with her we — you know, because at that time —

MARTIN: Yes, girl problems. Women problems.

KING: Yes.

MARTIN: You can’t have that. You can’t talk about that.

KING: Women couldn’t even open up a bank account without a man at that time. And here she is running for Congress. That was kind of like, you know, mind-blowing for me.

MARTIN: The film depicts that she had support from her husband, Conrad, at least at the beginning, but that her sister resented her, and you show that.

KING: Yes.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, I don’t blame you?

KING: No, you blame our father.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had four daughters. Four. But when he died, he left you the little money he had. You were treated differently. And now, you think — now, you think you’re special. That’s how papa was with you. He made you believe things. They aren’t true.

KING: He made me believe in myself, regardless of what people think.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have no regard?

KING: Whether or not someone else stand with you —

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don’t care what this campaign does to your friends?

KING: I can do what is necessary.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To your family? That’s what papa would want? You are pushing us away over nothing.

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MARTIN: Could you talk about that, and why you thought it was important to include that?

KING: Well, I think, you know, when you are especially doing — telling a story that’s a slice of life, a slice of history, it’s — I know as an audience member, I want to walk away feeling like I’ve learned something about the experience that I couldn’t of receive just when I looked it up online, you know. And it’s those little things that we call those nuances. It’s the nuance, you know, that makes you feel as though, oh, I’ve really gotten into the interior of this person that, you know, we’re sitting to take in for a couple hours. And everything that we read, even in Shirley’s books, she did not just say it outright, but she does allude to not having the support from her mother and her sisters, not quite understanding the need for to be Shirley Chisholm, you know? But her father did before he passed away. And it’s little moments like that you don’t — you can’t spine on the Google. You can read about. Shirley’s a strategist. She understood that if I did write that, then now that I could possibly look weak. That’s my thought. And I think the vulnerability was important to show so that you can appreciate the strength. Because vulnerability is a form of strength, to me, when you’re — when we’re — we allow ourselves to show it. But it’s not always looked at as a form of strength when — for women in positions that they’re operating and dealing with mostly, you know, are only men.

MARTIN: You do show so many aspects of her life, and one of them is her mentorship of other women. I mean, she was famous for, as a member of Congress, giving women jobs that they had not had before.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Voting’s bourgeois politics.

KING: If all you’re doing is outside yelling and screaming, that’s all your ever going to be, a yeller and a screamer. You have to be part of the process.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The process doesn’t exist in politics for black women. You’re different.

KING: I saw what needed to be done, and I did it. That’s not different, that’s necessary. I want you to come work for me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On your campaign?

KING: Oh, is that too bourgeois for you?

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MARTIN: What do you think Shirley Chisholm might think of the current moment, where, you know — our current political moment, where on the one hand you have the first, you know, woman of color as vice president, on the other hand, you know, legislatively, women are fighting battles that they thought they had won? And I’m just wondering if you have some thoughts about that. Your film lands at such an interesting time.

KING: Yes. You know, there’s a part of me that feels like if Shirley was running for president during these times, she might have very well won, you know? Can you imagine a Shirley going toe to toe with like a Donald Trump? Oh, my God, I don’t think it would have gone down quite the same. And, you know, maybe that’s me just with Pollyanna dreams or whatever. But I do know that there’s an interview that I had seen that Shirley had done, I want to say it was in the ’90s, it may have been in the ’80s, but she was asked, you know, did she think she’d see a woman president in her lifetime? And she said, absolutely not, you know? And she said, but you know, there’ll be a vice president, a woman vice president before a president. And I just thought that was so fascinating with everything that she had — you know, the fighting Chisholm, everything that she had done, all that she was up against. She — and this was after she had retired, she was no longer in politics at all at this point, she was just kind of giving speeches, but all that she had seen in the time and all those terms that she had served, she knew without a doubt that we as a people were not evolved enough to have a woman in that position. And I think about when Trump won, and that meant that there were a lot of women that voted for him. I think that she’d be disappointed, you know? I mean, we are — we’re disappointed, you know? But I would say that I have faith in the younger generation having the desire to become more involved to activate. Because we do need a youth, smart, young, passionate people to want to become involved in the political process. And I think that’s one of Shirley’s gifts. That was one of her superpowers, to just see in people what they did not see in themselves and kind of ignite something in them to think bigger and want to go out and seek the knowledge and think more globally, if you will.

MARTIN: Well, congratulations on the film.

KING: Thank you.

MARTIN: Thank you so much for talking with us about it. What do you hope people will get from it?

KING: Just what I was just saying, I hope that people feel activated. And I hope that, again, although I’m not Shirley, one of the big messages that she always spoke about throughout the campaign is the importance of the youth, you know. We’re making decisions for their future. And I hope that younger people feel that they meet the criteria. They have the criteria that’s needed to want to run for those local offices, because that’s where a lot of the decisions that are made that affect our day-to- day lives. You know, in city council, your — you know, your representatives in your district, your mayors, your governors, you know, that they make really huge choices that affect your day-to-day, and that they are interested in it. They’re interested in the future. That’s what I hope, you know.

MARTIN: Regina King, thank you so much for talking with us. Congratulations.

KING: Thank you.