00:00As black women we are worthy of opening a movie, of being global, of people filling up theaters,
00:08that we literally can make money at the box office,
00:12we can be at the center of the narrative, and that we are profoundly beautiful.
00:30Some things are worth fighting for.
00:34The title in the movie alone is sort of a great metaphor for this point in my life,
00:39in my career. This film is about my agency and my autonomy as an artist and as a black woman,
00:47a dark-skinned black woman in Hollywood. Have I had some roles in the past that have been
00:52terrific roles? Yes, there have been terrific roles, but more often than not, I have not had
01:00autonomy. I have had so many roles where I've had to fill in the gap. I've had to do the work to
01:05humanize them. They were definitely characters on the periphery, not explored at all.
01:13This is a fully realized, the whole story is absolutely fully realized in terms of their
01:20humanity, in terms of what they did, in terms of it being an action historical drama, in terms
01:25of the fact that my production company with my husband, Julius Tenen, produced the film.
01:31We fought for it. The fight has been real. That's the difference. The difference is ownership.
01:37I want people to tap into their warrior spirit, because I'm telling you one thing that I've
01:42learned on the road, just as a human being, is that life is a fight. Life is a beautiful
01:48struggle. It's a fight. But if you are trying to achieve comfort, then we are not moving
01:56the narrative forward for us at all. And so this is for the risk takers. This is for the people
02:07who want to be risk takers and are afraid to be risk takers. I hope it really emboldens them.
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