![]() ![]() When you know a character really well, sometimes you know just by looking at them what they’re thinking. You’re starting to know what the character would say, and you can start writing with a level of economy. I’ll tell you, it’s when the scenes get easier to write. ![]() When you started working on the character, how did you know you had cracked it? He was very true to me about his pledge to make this be a supporting part that supported these women and this movie. And we’ll do it together.” I said, “Really?” And he said, “Really.” Listen, a lot of people will promise you a lot of things to get you in a movie, and then all of a sudden, reasons will come along as to why they can’t do them anymore and that promise gets broken. I’ve done what you’re doing, and I know you’re going to be tired.” And perhaps you’ll get tired and we won’t get there. You’re about to go down to Atlanta and shoot, and the last thing you’re going to want to do after a long day is call me back in California and work on the supporting part, but that’s what it’s going to take for me to do it.” I told him, “I’ll help if you want me to, but if you’re just going to do pages on your own and they come back and I start drawing red lines through them, I know that’s going to get frustrating. We can try to fix this, but it means we’re going to have to work on this. I focused so much on the women and I was unsuccessful in obtaining the rights to any of these men’s lives” - there were three of them - “so I had to make a character out of these three people.” And I said, “Well, it kind of reads like that. I just hurt his feelings and I didn’t want to do that.” And he said, “You know, it’s the one part I’ve had trouble with. It’s schizophrenic.” And he was quiet, and I thought, “Well, fuck. to come in and want to change things because of some weird pride of authorship, but this part is difficult. I just said, simply, “Congratulations on the screenplay. I love writers, but this was a moment where I had to come very clean with him, very quickly. We didn’t have a lot of time for niceties, to be honest. You told this to Ted Melfi, the director? There should be a reason why a person is the way they are, and it should manifest itself in something important to the film. But the character was saying something on one page and then on another page saying something different, and you didn’t understand him in the arc of the movie. I wouldn’t choose to play this role.” Not because the movie wasn’t significant, but because the part was a little schizophrenic - and I just want to say, I don’t have anything against playing a schizophrenic! Or a serial killer, or anything. When I was approached with the film, I basically said, “Look, I can see why they’re making this movie, but anybody in the world could play this role. I know you had a big hand in shaping this character. As Costner told Vulture recently in a very candid conversation, that’s an arc he had to fight for. Though he appreciates her formidable mind, Harrison himself is not mindful of the daily challenges Johnson must face as a black woman, and his slowly dawning awareness gives the film one of its most resonant story arcs. Hidden Figures focuses mainly on Johnson as she takes on a new position working under NASA bigwig Al Harrison (Kevin Costner). Dubbed “computers,” they were talented mathematicians who pored over calculations made by the Space Task Group as they labored to send astronaut John Glenn into space. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), three black women who made an invaluable contribution to NASA’s space-race efforts in the 1960s, but never got their due until now. Kennedy as a candidate for the NASA astronaut trainee program in 1961, according to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.Hidden Figures traces the true story of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. ![]() Dwight was recommended by then-President John F. The documentary reveals new hidden figures who took one step for man and a giant leap for the Black astronauts who helped propel mankind.Įd Dwight, a former test pilot who was the first Black astronaut candidate, opened up about the burdens he faced in the project. So, we just wanted to give them agency so they could perfectly tell their story," Hurtado de Mendoza told "Good Morning America" while discussing the film during the 2023 Tribeca Festival. ![]() "Men and women in the space program are the best of us, the best and brightest. "The Space Race," an upcoming documentary film directed by Lisa Cortés and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, travels back through history with a collection of archive film and interviews, uncovering the social and racial barriers it took for the first Black astronauts to reach space. At least 500 astronauts have traveled to space - yet only 18 of those have been Black astronauts, according to NASA. ![]()
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