Regina King vs. Regina Hall

The other night at the Golden Globes, Regina King was recognized for her work as Sharon Rivers in If Beale Street Could Talk by winning the award for best supporting actress in any motion picture.

I haven't seen the movie yet, and unfortunately, will not be able to until February, after my year-end ranking deadline. However, I did think "Wow, what a great year for her, since she was also critically acclaimed in Support the Girls."

Nope. That was Regina Hall.

In fact, Regina Hall became the first black woman ever to be honored with an acting award from the New York Film Critics Circle, which seems crazy but oh well. Better late than never. She was named best actress by the NYFCC for Support the Girls.

Which I saw last night, leading to this post.

It turns out, the two women have more in common than the same first name, a monosyllabic common noun last name, the same skin color, and earning an acting award in 2018. (That's Hall on the left and King on the right, by the way.)

I figured I was more familiar with Regina King, as I determined she was the one who appeared in the sitcom 227 way back when, and was a fixture in John Singleton's movies in the 1990s. I decided I definitely should not mistake the two and that Hall was likely some new(er)comer who was 15 years younger than King.

In actuality, Hall is older. But not by much. Hall was born on December 12, 1970, meaning she has just turned 48. Thirty-four days later, on January 15, 1971, King was born. Meaning she'll turn 48 next week. And yes, although King did get an earlier start, when she was only a teenager, Hall first hit the (small) screen in an episode of the TV show Loving in 1992. She only had two more roles in the 1990s before starting to appear in an average of two to three projects a year come the 21st century. Making her the rare case of an actress whose career actually heated up when she hit 30.

In glancing over the rest of their filmographies, I can't draw meaningful comparisons between the choices they've made. Hall was in all the Scary Movies as well as a number of romantic comedy/dramas curated for an African American audience (and almost every film directed by Malcolm D. Lee), while King has been sprinkled throughout the movies and TV. In terms of pure critical acclaim for the movies they've appeared in, King seems to have the upper hand, with such films to her credit as Boyz N the Hood, Jerry Maguire and Ray. But my favorite performance of either actress is probably Hall's as the lead in last year's Girls Trip, in which I thought she killed it. Hall is also now more regularly a film actress while King seems to work mostly in TV, which gives her an advantage on this particular blog.

I do think it's strange that they have not worked together during the two decades in the business that their careers have overlapped, which I can confirm as a result of one of those "credited with" searches on IMDB. Someone could have even done it as a stunt. Though maybe casting directors were more concerned about the faux pas of confusing one for the other and just avoided the scenario altogether.

Whatever the case, I'm glad that 2018 represents long overdue recognition for both. It's a shame that it took until they were nearly 50 to be so recognized, but again ... better late than never.