HE’S NO. 1Number One on the Call Sheet director Reginald Hudlin. (Lou Aguilar)
Throughout his 40-plus-year career, filmmaker and Oscar-nominated producer Reginald Hudlin has collaborated with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, and even the legendary Sidney Poitier. However, even Hudlin was left with a fresh perspective on the industry thanks to his work as co-director on the two-part Apple TV+ documentary, Number One on the Call Sheet, where top Black actors and actresses recount their experiences on set.
“I just felt so fortunate to be asking these questions and getting these answers,” said Hudlin, who directed the two-part doc with Shola Lynch. “The movie is about a winner’s mindset, ultimately. But there are all these different paths to winning,” he adds, citing Oscar winners like Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman and populist entertainers like Kevin Hart and Ice Cube. “There’s all these paths to winning, but they all have something in common, which is being willing to do the work.”
‘Number One on the Call Sheet’ Apple TV+: The Ankler & Pure Nonfiction Documentary Spotlight
Filmmaker Reginald Hudlin has collaborated with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars in his career, including Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, and the legendary Sidney Poitier. However, even Hudlin was left with a fresh perspective on the industry thanks to his work as co-director on the two-part Apple TV+ documentary, Number One on the Call Sheet, where top Black actors and actresses recount their experiences on set. In conversation with Thom Powers on May 21, Hudlin recalls a “lightning bolt story” actor Laurence Fishburne tells on screen about his experiences on Apocalypse Now, and how a kind word from Martin Sheen changed Fishburne’s entire trajectory. “I just felt so fortunate to be asking these questions and getting these answers,” says Hudlin, who directed the doc with Shola Lynch. “The movie is about a winner’s mindset, ultimately. But there are all these different paths to winning,” he adds, citing Oscar winners like Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman and populist entertainers like Kevin Hart and Ice Cube. “They’re all successful and they’re all doing great work, and that’s an important message for everyone to hear.” You can watch Number One on the Call Sheet on Apple TV+.
“It was a producing and political feat to get all of these people to sit down,” say the directors of Apple TV+’s ‘Number One on the Call Sheet.’
Halle Berry appears in Apple TV+’s Number One on the Call Sheet.
When Reginald Hudlin received a call from Jamie Foxx and producer Datari Turner in 2019 saying that they wanted to make a movie about leading Black actors in Hollywood, he was all in.
“It was kind of a no-brainer,” says Hudlin, director of Apple TV+’s Number One on the Call Sheet. “As we started talking through the idea, it was pretty obvious that there was more than enough talent to feature in this film. In fact, we needed to restructure this movie so it was even bigger — hence, Shola Lynch.”
Lynch came on board to direct the film on Black leading women in Hollywood, while Hudlin was at the helm for the film on Black leading men. Together they make up the two-part docuseries in which some 30 A-listers, from Angela Bassett, Halle Berry, Whoopi Goldberg and Viola Davis to Denzel Washington, Will Smith and Eddie Murphy, discuss their journeys as entertainers. The stars were filmed over a period of roughly two years starting in 2022, with Kevin Hart and Foxx appearing as subjects and serving as producers through their respective companies, Hartbeat and Foxxhole Productions.
“It was a producing and political feat to get all of these people to sit down,” says Lynch, whose credits include the Cicely Tyson tribute at the 2018 Governors Awards. “After that piece, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, let’s make a piece about Black women in filmmaking in Hollywood,’ and she and her people were like, ‘We can’t do that. The political capital [is too great],’ and it never quite got off the ground. So when all the guys circled to me, my only regret was Ms. Tyson is gone,” adds Lynch. “But here to mark the time in a way that nobody else had the capacity to do are these films that are produced by Black film companies. Their power, celebrity and cachet helped ride that wave and get everybody to sit down because there is no precedent for it.”
The tone of the series is both celebratory and raw. The male actors pay homage to pioneers like Sidney Poitier and reflect on how Smith’s box office success shattered preconceived notions that Black entertainers couldn’t be international movie stars. The actresses reflect on thresholds they have and have yet to surmount, a significant portion of the series centering on Berry’s post as the sole Black woman in the Academy’s 97-year history to win an Oscar for best actress. The takeaway, however, the filmmakers say, isn’t to point fingers at the industry but rather draw inspiration from the ways in which each subject has defied the odds.
Denzel Washington in Number One on the Call Sheet.
“I think this is what people need — not just want but need, which is blueprints for living,” says Hudlin. “Here’s a bunch of winners telling you how to win, and there’s not one path. There are a number of different paths. Pick the one that’s right for you.”
Adds Lynch: “It makes each one of us think, ‘How can we be number one on our own call sheet?’ How can we be the excellence [that we want to see] or be in our purpose?’ Because these women, they’re in their purpose and they’re going to do it regardless. They’re going to find a way, and that in itself is very, very inspiring.”
“Number One on the Call Sheet” focuses on the journeys of Hollywood’s leading Black actors and actresses.
A rare club in Hollywood: those who’ve been “No. 1 on the call sheet,” meaning the one who usually gets the biggest role and the most money for a film. The Black actors and actresses who’ve achieved that status are the focus of a new Apple TV+ documentary, Number One on the Call Sheet. The first part, directed by Reginald Hudlin, features male actors like Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Eddie Murphy, and Will Smith. The second, directed by Shola Lynch, is about women such as Viola Davis, Angela Bassett, Whoopi Goldberg, and Halle Berry.
Will Smith particularly wanted to be a global star when Hollywood believed films with Black actors wouldn’t work overseas. In the documentary, he says, “It was Arnold [Schwarzenegger], Bruce [Willis], and Sly [Stallone], and I walked up to them, and I was like, ‘Hey, look, I don’t mean to interrupt y’all, but I want to do what y’all do. What’s the secret? I know you know something that other people don’t know.’ And Arnold said, ‘If you want to be a movie star, you never be a movie star if your movies are only successful in America. Your movies must be successful everywhere on Earth.’”
Will Smith in “Number One on the Call Sheet.” Credit: Apple TV+.
Hudlin says Smith was a rapper from Philadelphia who had the talent and willpower to do movies with worldwide appeal, and he was confident that studios would promote them as if he were a white actor.
Hudlin adds, “All these people are change agents. We were very deliberate to talk to people from different generations who work in different genres of film, because we need Lawrence Fishburne … Kevin Hart … Morgan Freeman. … They’re all fighting the same war on different fronts.”
Morgan Freeman in “Number One on the Call Sheet.” Credit: Apple TV+.
Did women express the same goals of global prominence? “You have to look at it in different ways,” Lynch says. “And for Black women in our society, when often we are dismissed as not the lead or as the lowest-ranking … that you find your way, and you see where you are. But you also make sure that you’re working towards your No. 1 on your call sheet.”
In the film, Viola Davis points out that what’s available for, say, Meryl Streep is not available for her: “It is hard to get a job, no matter how much intention you have to say, ‘This is a type of role I want next time, don’t call me unless you have that role.’ A lot of those roles, especially for us, I’m 58, I’m a dark-skinned Black woman, even if I were light-skinned, really, those roles don’t even exist.”
Viola Davis (right) with director Shola Lynch (left) in “Number One on the Call Sheet.” Credit: Apple TV+.
Nia Long also talks about being considered tough to work with: “People think I’m crazy because I like to do my own touch-ups, I know what I want to fix on my face. Why is that a bad thing? … Every woman who’s ever made an impact on this industry has been labeled difficult.”
Nia Long appears in “Number One on the Call Sheet.” Credit: Apple TV+.
Hudlin says there’s the challenge of having one’s humanity acknowledged, which includes issues with hair and skin texture that others may not understand or care about, but affect people’s abilities to do their jobs.
He gives the example of Sidney Poitier putting in his contract for In the Heat of the Night: Producers would not cut the scene of him slapping back another character. “‘Nowhere in the world can you change the movie so that I just take a slap,’” Hudlin quotes Poitier.
He continues, “To get that put into his contract, to protect the integrity of his character and who he is as an actor … was an issue. But he knew that the implications of that imagery were so powerful that he had to protect it, his artistry, with legal protection.”
The film also focuses on the Academy Awards, and to this day, Halle Berry remains the only Black woman to win the Best Actress in a Leading Role category (for Monster’s Ball in 2001).
Halle Berry in “Number One on the Call Sheet.” Credit: Apple TV+.
Lynch says it’s important to lay out the history that came before: “So Hattie McDaniel wins the Best Supporting Actress for being a maid in Gone With the Wind. And we’re cast in Hollywood as, at best, supporting. … And for us to push back and find the roles and get the votes … it took until Halle Berry. … And there’s been enormous change. … I think the women would be disappointed if I sat here complaining for them, because they see where things are, but they also see how far we’ve come.”
