No one could have told me that I’d ever write a book, and no one could have told me I’d ever direct a film. Except a psychic! Actually, this one was fancy and called himself a “spiritual advisor.” Either way, I was too scared and lazy to ask him to elaborate. I was sure he was just assuming that I, being an actor, was interested in directing someday. But back then he was dead wrong. I had zero interest in directing. My first director, Lee Daniels, knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. He doesn’t accept anything less than what he asks for. I watched him very carefully on set. I took in every bit of his process, and said, “Nope!” I didn’t want the responsibility. I didn’t think I could care about anything enough to fight for it the way I’d seen Lee and every other director I’d ever worked with fight for what they wanted to say with their work. Me, a director? The boss of a movie? I didn’t want to be the boss. What if I failed? What if I wasn’t as good as Lee Daniels? Or as good as anybody? That would be horrible. Even as a phone sex operator, while I wasn’t content to sit at a desk moaning into a phone my whole life, I never wanted to be the boss of the entire company. Somewhere in the middle without a spotlight or too much responsibility would’ve been all I needed. There’s no fear in the middle.
But that was six years ago.
I directed my first film, The Tale of Four, during the summer of 2016 and immediately submitted it to film festivals. The film is an adaptation of the Nina Simone song called “Four Women” about four strong black women from four distinct worlds: an abused woman, a woman of mixed race, a woman called Sweet Thing who uses the power of her sexuality, and a tough, bitter woman whose life “has been too rough.” My producing partner Kia (you know her!) came up with the idea a few years ago, and we built an entire world around those women.
Well, thank God I was a creepy fat kid, cuz it has made for an interesting adulthood! Out of really nowhere, Shatterbox, an offshoot of Refinery29, offered me the chance to direct any short film I chose. I could’ve said no. I had just finished a season of Empire, was writing this book, and secretly considering surgery before going back to work on Empire. I had only months to get the entire film done. Also, I’d never directed traffic. How would I direct actors and a crew of people looking to me for answers? I wanted to say no. No made the most sense. But writing this book had reminded me that my life has been filled with nos from other people. The only time something got interesting in my life was when someone said yes.
I said yes, but the film needed to be Kia’s, too. Even if I couldn’t yet believe 100 percent in my own voice when it came to directing a film, I believed in hers. Kia has known she wanted to be a filmmaker for most of her life. She went to college for it. She’d already directed her own shorts. When I was a twenty-four-year-old phone sex worker who’d tripped into a starring film role, I envied her tenacity. She did exactly what she wanted to do instead of what she felt she had to do. Like my mom. Her job was a fantasy job . . . on purpose. When I was given the chance to make my own film, I knew I needed Kia.
I asked her if I could direct the film and told her that I would fight to hire her as producer. Kia was skeptical at first. Handing over this film idea that she had held on to for years wasn’t easy for her. We both worried that Refinery29 would police us with rules and veto our ideas and change the story completely on us. That didn’t happen. At our first production meeting we found out who the actual bosses were. Turns out, it was Kia and I. We were in charge.
After hiring Kia as creator and producer of our film, I brought on super producer Lisa Cortes to be a part of our team. Lisa has produced films with Lee Daniels for years. She produced Precious and never ceased to amaze me with her ability to be a lovely, smart problem solver who expresses her wants and vision without apology. A woman who doesn’t apologize for her very existence on Earth is rare, and that’s what I wanted for myself. I would carefully listen to every word she said on set. Hiring her for my first film was a great decision. I needed a whip-smart woman in our corner to fight for Kia’s and my voice in case we couldn’t do it on our own.
We didn’t yet realize our own strength.
Kia was in charge of assembling our crew. She set up interviews for me with assistant directors and camera operators. My friend and mentor Victoria Mahoney, an actress turned director who had hired me for my second film role, told me the assistant directors I’d be interviewing would most likely be men and to watch for those who seemed ready to undermine me. The first assistant director I met was a man who wanted the job, assumed he had it, and kept commenting during the interview how smart I was. But not in a good way. Every time I said anything that showed I knew what I was doing, he said, “Oh . . . so you’re smart, huh?” Ladies! You know what I’m talking about, right? Hell, no. Not on MY set! I hired a very smart and serious assistant director who had done some documentary work I liked. My director of photography had worked on projects I admired, too, and he had a very Zen-like, calm demeanor. In fact, there are photos of him on our set standing on his head. (Buddhist monks do that, right? No? They don’t? They should.) Both of these men became my pillars of support. Both of them listened patiently to all of my thoughts and concerns. Neither of them ever said no to me. Neither ever tried to be louder than I was. They both taught me so much and allowed me to make my film the way I wanted.
No one on our crew was there to get rich, which would’ve been impossible. We had champagne dreams for our beer-budget film. Some of our crew belonged to unions that wouldn’t let them work without proper compensation. So they changed their names for us and were paid much less than they were worth. Just because they believed in us. From our actors to hair and makeup to producers, camera operators, and set photographers—we had friends, family, and allies in every department of this film who all happened to be talented, award-winning professionals. Every time I started to feel overwhelmed or nervous, I’d look up in any direction and see my friends there for me—and it would immediately calm me down. That was the real joy. Being surrounded by people who all were there to support me and what we wanted to say with our film.