Aldis Hodge Gushes Over Working With First-Time Film Director Regina King

By J. Kim Murphy

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Regina King is on a roll.

After winning an Oscar for “If Beale Street Could Talk” and starring as masked vigilante Sister Knight in HBO’s “Watchmen,” King is gearing up to make her film directing debut with “One Night in Miami.”

Adapted by Kemp Powers from his play of the same name, the film dramatizes a 1964 meeting of Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay), Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown in a Miami hotel room.

“She’s fantastic,” Aldis Hodge, who plays Brown in the film, told Variety of King at the premiere of his new horror movie “The Invisible Man.” “People are going to be really impressed. If you’ve ever met her, you understand that she’s such a sweet woman, such a sweetheart, [a] real down to the earth, salt of the earth kind of woman.”

Though this will be King’s first time helming a feature film, the star has spent plenty of time behind the camera, directing episodes of “This Is Us,” “Shameless,” “The Good Doctor,” “Insecure” and “Scandal.” In 2014, she won an NAACP Image Award for directing an episode of TNT’s “Southland.”

“She understands how to handle actors because she is such a phenomenal actress,” Hodge continued. “I think she brings all of that empathy and understanding to directing others. She’s really a partner, not a dictator, on set. She gives us the room and space to really discover and play. She’s phenomenal.”

“One Night in Miami” also stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke and Eli Goree as Cassius Clay.