Career
King began her acting career in 1985 in the role of Marla Gibbs' daughter Brenda on the television series 227, a role she played until 1990. She went on to appear in the John Singleton films Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice and Higher Learning. In 1995, she was featured in the hit comedy Friday. In 1996, she gained fame starring in the blockbuster romantic comedy Jerry Maguire, with Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr. This film brought King mainstream recognition in her role as Marcee Tidwell, the wife of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s character.
Soon thereafter she played Will Smith's wife in the spy thriller Enemy of the State, and was also featured in How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Disney's remake Mighty Joe Young. She continued playing feature roles in a variety of films, including Down to Earth, with Chris Rock; Daddy Day Care, with Golden Globe winner Eddie Murphy; Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, with Reese Witherspoon and Sally Field; and A Cinderella Story, with Hilary Duff and Jennifer Coolidge.
In 2004, in the movie Ray, King played Margie Hendricks, a singer in Ray Charles’ backup group The Raelettes and one of the musical legend’s mistresses. Following in 2005, she co-starred in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous as Sandra Bullock's tough FBI agent partner. Additionally, she is the star of the Adult Swim show The Boondocks, providing the voices for the characters Huey and Riley Freeman, as well as the feature film The Ant Bully. Most recently, she appeared in season 6 of the hit show 24 and the film This Christmas, with an all star cast, such as Loretta Devine, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, and Chris Brown. In 2008, she appeared in the TV film Living Proof.
King currently stars in the TNT police drama Southland, as Detective Lydia Adams. NBC originally aired the show's first few episodes and then requested new episodes. NBC, however, began airing Jay Leno's then-new talk show five nights a week in prime time, occupying the time slot Southland and other scripted television series had held during week nights. NBC did not feel the show could work in an earlier time slot due to its grittier nature, thus the network did not pick up the second season of Southland. Cable network TNT believed the show would be a good fit for TNT and in January 2010, that network began airing the original NBC episodes, in addition to ordering new episodes of Southland.
Read more about this topic: Regina King
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)