by Cortney Wills via thegrio.com
The 23rd Annual Critics’ Choice Awards went down in Los Angeles on Thursday evening. Jay Pharaoh presented the first award of the night for Best Comedy to The Big Sick after opening the show with a freestyle rapping skit alongside host, Olivia Munn.
Jordan Peele’s hit horror film, Get Out won the award for Best Screenplay. The film also won Best Sci-Fi or Horror Movie.
TheGrio caught up with one of the film’s stars on the red carpet and he had a lot to say about the provocative project.
Lil Rey Howery, admitted he was pleasantly surprised by the world’s reaction to Peele’s groundbreaking film, Get Out.
“It’s surreal. When I read the script I looked at Jordan and said, ‘Are they really gonna let you do this, brother? I’m in!’ It’s really dope. I’m really proud of Jordan for taking his time. It took him eight years to write it. He’s the only one who could execute what was in his brain,” he said before revealing that his character, Officer Rod Williams, was written just for him.
“So many experiences in the movie felt like experiences I have had before. It’s just genius. He wrote the character in my voice and I knew it. It sounded just like me.”
Aside from Peele being honored for Get Out, there were only a few people of color who came out on top.
Sterling K. Brown took home the award for Best Actor in a Drama Series for his role in This Is Us.
During his acceptance speech, he joked about the crowd not being able to tell that he was blushing before revealing one of the reasons he’s so grateful to work on the hit NBC series.
“I speak on behalf of my show that’s not the darkest, or the sexiest, but we have a lot of heart,” he said. “And in some dark times right now, it’s nice to be a part of something that reminds us that we’re all in this thing called life together.”
RuPaul won Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul’s Drag Race, rounding out the short list of African American winners for the night.
Source: https://thegrio.com/2018/01/12/jordan-peeles-get-out-wins-best-original-screenplay-at-critics-choice-awards/
Helmed by Ava DuVernay, the seven-minute-plus video is a short film, serves up some sci-fi, futuristic realness that can very well be a taste of what’s to come in the celebrated director’s adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time. Joining JayZ, Beyoncé and the heiress to their throne, Blue Ivy, includes an inspiring roster of actors from every part of the color spectrum: Michael B. Jordan, Trevante Rhodes, Thandie Newton, Jessica Chastain, Irene Bedard, Omari Hardwick, David Oyelowo, Emayatzy Corinealdi, America Ferrera, Aisha Hinds, Henry G. Sanders, and Storm Reid — who is the star of Wrinkle in Time. Rounding out the cast is the “founding mothers”, which feature Mindy Kaling, Rashida Jones, Rosario Dawson, Janet Mock, Brie Larson, Constance Wu, Niecy Nash, and Susan Kelechi Watson, who, as the video shows, are different women from all walks of life who are enlisted to change the country’s constitution.
https://youtu.be/88EB0TEGQDA
Jay’s track serves as an atonement and one key lyric sets the tone for the short film: “nobody wins when the family feuds.” Of course, he is referring to his familial relationships, but it goes beyond that and applies it to feuding within the country and the world. There’s layers of meaning in the short that starts off with a poignant James Baldwin quote and goes into a Godfather-meets-Game of Thrones scene, moments of war, moments reflecting today’s volatile political climate, and a group of empowering females looking to build a utopian rather than dystopian future.
DuVernay took to Twitter to share her thoughts, inspiration and behind-the-scenes photos from the video.
https://twitter.com/ava/status/946886159472279552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fdeadline.com%2F2017%2F12%2Fjay-z-famly-feud-beyonce-ava-duvernay-jessica-chastain-michael-b-jordan-mindy-kaling-1202233845%2F