CAA/Blackhouse Dinner For Reggie!

Black achievement in Hollywood really isn’t recognized, let alone celebrated as much as you think it is.  It’s usually a fight for respect from white institutions and maybe a well intended but poorly executed tribute from black institutions.  So when Blackhouse (and black film support organization) and CAA (my new agency) came together to throw this incredibly nice event for me, it was shocking just because it happened.  One of the attendees, one of the highest ranking black executives in music, told me he was totally inspired because “this NEVER happens”.

Common, RZA, Sanaa Lathan, Brandon T. Jackson, Jordin Sparks and More Celebrate Reginald Hudlin At "Dinner With Bevy"

Bonus photos!

Verdine White of Earth Wind and Fire, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, me, Ali LeRoi, creator/producer of ARE WE THERE YET? and many other fine entertainments.   Thanks for the classy picture Ali!

Congresswoman Waters is originally from St. Louis.  My mom used to go roller skating with her sisters. 

Old friends and new: So nice to meet Jordin Sparks, who is as sweet as she is lovely and talented; and my old and dear friends Terry and Rebecca Crews.  Terry is one of the hardest working men in Hollywood but his positive spirit is the same as it was when he was working as a security guard.

Me giving thanks to everyone who attended.  The best part?  My mother got a standing ovation!

Talk about it on HEF – the Hudlin Entertainment Forum

The Oscars

2013 Oscar nominees Denzel Washington (best actor), Quvenzhane Wallis (best actress) and Reginald Hudlin (motion picture of the year).

Right after I took it, I showed Quentin this picture, and he said “BOP GUN: Black Oscar Power”.

Earlier that week my old Harvard roommates were wishing me luck, which led into a cool conversation about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.  The short version is that anything could be in the envelope until it is opened.  I share the observation with others, but Christoph is the only person who gets it…and builds on the notion. 

Boom! Christoph wins the first award of the night.  I felt like I mentally willed it to be moments before they read it. He knows his way around quantum physics.   He gives an awesome speech, one completely keeping with his class, intelligence and wit.

Here’s what’s crazy. Our friends rewound and did a freeze frame of the live shot, shot this screen grab and texted to us in the theatre as it was happening.  I love living in the future. 

I later find out this is the first of a half dozen times I ended up camera during the show.  Sitting near Christoph, Reese Witherspoon and the star of LIFE OF PI worked out well for me.

Quentin’s Oscar.  He earned it. 

QT, my agent Cameron Mitchell and I strike a pose.  After the Award show is over, we hit the Governor’s Ball.  We had not eaten since 2pm so thank goodness there was great food from our friends Wolfgang Punk and his wife Galila.

After the Governor’s Ball, we headed to the Fabled Vanity Fair Party.  Here is Jamie Foxx with the beautiful daughter.  He usually has family with at important events like this.

Jamie is always great with the media.  A total entertainer. 

We came, we saw, we were seen, we partied.  Time to go home, sleep, and get up and start climbing the mountain again tomorrow.

Talk about it on HEF – the Hudlin Entertainment Forum

CAA/Blackhouse Event Smiles

Some of the lovely ladies at the CAA/Blackhouse event.

More beautiful smiles on HEF

For ‘Django’ producer, an unexpected Oscar ride

By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer

Feb 15 2013

‘Django Unchained’ producer Reginald Hudlin talks about the project

From left producers Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin, and Pilar Savone pose for a portrait during the 85th Academy Awards Nominations Luncheon at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on 4 February in Beverly Hills, California. Hudlin is the most prominent African-American behind the scenes of the hit film ‘Django Unchained’. Photo: AFP

Reginald Hudlin, director of films like Boomerang and House Party, never expected to be going to the Oscars as a best-picture-nominated producer of a slavery-era spaghetti Western by Quentin Tarantino.

“I didn’t think it was happening when it was happening,” Hudlin says, laughing. The wide-ranging career of the 51-year-old filmmaker has included a three-year stint as president of entertainment for BET, executive producing TV shows like The Boondocks, writing the Marvel comic book Black Panther and directing episodes of Modern Family and Everybody Hates Chris.

So when Tarantino called up Hudlin to ask if he wanted to help produce Django, he was stunned. “Quite frankly, I just didn’t believe him,” Hudlin recalled in a recent phone interview from his home in Los Angeles. But Hudlin had long known Tarantino, who told him that a conversation they had had years earlier about Hollywood’s depictions of slavery (or lack thereof) helped lead Tarantino to write Django Unchained.

A week later, Hudlin was in Louisiana scouting locations for the film that would eventually land five Academy Awards nominations and gross more than $340 million worldwide. He shares the best picture nomination with producers Stacey Sher (who produced Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction) and Pilar Savone (who has risen in Tarantino’s productions since being the director’s assistant on Kill Bill).

Hudlin is the most prominent African-American behind the scenes of the hit film, which courted the black community ahead of its release and mostly won its support. Spike Lee was one notable exception. (He refused to see it, saying “American slavery was not a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust.”) And a limited-edition line of action figures of the film’s characters—including slaves and slave-owners—drew protests and eventually the dolls’ withdrawal from sale. “We knew from the beginning that we were working with nitroglycerin,” says Hudlin. “Was there a tremendous amount of discussion and conversation and analysis to make sure we were calibrating this thing exactly right? Absolutely. It was explosive material, but I always had confidence that as a team, we would deliver the right movie.”

For Hudlin, Django represents the kind of film he’d like to see more of: original movies with multi-ethnic casts that don’t reuse well-trod genre tropes. Django goes against the conventional thinking that neither films starring black actors nor Westerns can find large audiences abroad. It’s been a huge success internationally, taking in more than $187 million. “If those historical models were always correct, we wouldn’t be talking right now,” says Hudlin. “Those films travel because the world is represented in those films. The audiences are voting with their dollar saying: We want more diversity.”

The success of Django has already spawned much chatter about a possible sequel, which Hudlin grants he’s had “extensive conversations” with Tarantino about. But for now, he’s planning to just enjoy the Oscars, which he’ll attend with his wife and mother. With Ben Affleck’s Argo the generally accepted front-runner, Hudlin says he’s not “polishing my acceptance speech,” but proudly going as only the fourth black best picture nominee. “Hopefully,” he says, “there will be a day soon where we don’t count anymore.”

Talk about it on HEF – the Hudlin Entertainment Forum