Last month, I sat down with the star to discuss her latest project, The Best Man: The Final Chapters, reuniting with the cast that immediately turned into family, and her past roles that remain cemented in the hearts of millions. Being a young woman and being an ingenue and feeling like this was all new to me, it’s wonderful because I feel like I’m that for young actors as well. So yeah, that was my biggest moment. And just missing my friend, John Singleton. I miss him so much. I think he was one of the most prolific filmmakers of our time. And he didn’t back down to what Hollywood oftentimes tried to have him conform to. He was willing to say no, even if it made him work less, because he wasn’t willing to do the things that he didn’t believe in. I know, for me, as a young woman, I was always the awkward one. I wasn’t light skinned enough and I wasn’t dark skinned enough, and I was always sort of like, “Which group do I cling to?” And we do that to ourselves. So when you see a film like Love Jones, and you see a version of all of us, it’s like, “Oh, wait a minute. We shouldn’t do that to ourselves. We should just be accepting of each and every version of who we are.” I just remember going, “Oh, I’m really excited about this one!” It was something different, you know? Because in the ’90s, we were telling these hood stories, which were just as equally as important, but there was also a whole group of people that weren’t being represented. So, it’s just nice to be able to represent a part of who we are collectively. Regina is like, you know, she gives good advice and she’s funny. And she doesn’t go out. She’s home if you need to reach her [laughs]. If she’s not working, she’s home. She’s like me, I’m always home. And then you know, Sanaa’s like a little butterfly. She knows a lot about a lot of things. She’s a Virgo. She’s very serious about the things that she knows and she will share them with you. But you must listen to her…you must listen [laughs]. She’s very bossy. She’s my bossy friend.
