Actress Regina King Talks ‘Let the Church Say Amen’, Mentoring New Actresses & More

Actress/director Regina King has her hands full these days. The Cali-bred native (who most of us fell in love with as Brenda Jenkins on 227) continues to grow in Hollywood. Dabbling in movies, and TV, we recently chatted the 42-year-old mother about her latest project(s), mentoring up and coming actors and more. Check out our interview below.

So what do we have going on on TV-wise, movie-wise, project-wise?

    Always things in the work. Just most recently, I directed my 1st film, starring Naturi Naughton…

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

The movie is called “Let The Church Say Amen”. It’s a movie about a pastor who’s dedicated his life to his church and neglected his family. And when we meet this family, it’s when the kids are growing up and kind-of adds to the height of the dysfunction – the result of the father not being there. And it makes you laugh, it makes you cry. Amazing performances by Steve Harris, Lela Rochon, Hosea Chanchez – so I’m really excited about that. It’s going to be screening at MegaFest, August 29th.

And anything else that you’ve going on on TV, project-wise – not that that’s not enough.

Right, well, I do have some things – not going to drop them quite yet, but I will let you know when they do drop, very very soon.

I have to ask you – when I spoke to Naturi, she said that she felt like you were mentoring her, like a big sister. You’ve been in the industry for quite some time – how do you mentor and shape actors and actresses? Is it that a conscious effort or is it just natural?

 You know I don’t feel like it’s a conscious effort, most times. I mean, like when I was a cheerleading coach, I think that was more of conscious effort because I never was a cheerleader.

So you were a coach but you never cheered?

I was, let me take that back. I was a cheerleader for 2 weeks because I wanted to take a picture in the uniform. So after I took the picture in the uniform, I quit. But that’s the only thing I’ve quit. So most times I don’t feel like it’s a conscious thing. I think that’s when you really are giving and receiving, when you’re doing it – because you want to or – that’s just a passion transferring that energy with someone else.

Last question is about your body. It looks good! So how do you keep in shape?

You know, just – I get it in where I can fit it in. I do work out but you know what? I’m blessed with great arms from my father. So I will have to say that I’m kind of lucky that way. But I do work out – I work my lower body out, often. I eat what I want, but I don’t eat what I want all the time. So I give myself like a day or 2, depending on what’s going on in the week. To get all of  that comfort food in me, but for the most part I try to eat healthy. You know, proteins, vegetables – not mixing my proteins and carbs – there are so many rules. We’re in L.A – juicing – all of that.

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