Uncategorized

http://www.thenerdelement.com/2018/03/06/tomi-adeyemi-going-places/

The day is finally here!  The debut of Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha)!  I remember seeing an article on twitter talking about an author whose debut novel was already optioned for a movie.  I wanted to know who managed to accomplish this! I was happily surprised that it was a young Nigerian-American woman named Tomi Adeyemi.  When I had the opportunity to interview her last year at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) I jumped at it.  There was an immediate feeling that this was just the beginning of her journey and I was going to witness it with happy tears.

I waited to post this interview because March is Women History Month.  I could’ve published it during Black History Month but decided to wait again. Black girl magic is in effect as Adeyemi is making history with her accomplishments!  I managed to read a preview and the hype is well deserved.  A review will be coming soon. I wish I was able to post the video (stupid battery) of our conversation but hopefully, you can feel the infectious excitement as you read the interview.  I was so proud of myself for pronouncing her name right too! It was great discussing her journey creating this story. Enjoy!

TNE:  So, I heard that you were coming to Comic-Con and I was like I read that you got optioned for a movie and this is your debut book!

Tomi Adeyemi: Yeah

TNE:  So, that got me excited! Please tell us about your story!

Tomi Adeyemi: . . . My debut novel is called Children of Blood and Bone. It’s the first in a trilogy and it’s a West African epic YA fantasy about a girl who wants to bring magic back to her people. I love it for so many reasons! One, I’m just a big lover of big adventures. It’s been so much fun to write the most epic story I could think of and have that received… I didn’t know that was possible before…Are you a fan of Avatar the Last Air Bender?

TNE:      Yes, I am a big fan!

Tomi Adeyemi: I pitched this as the African Avatar the Last Air Bender. So, . . . in scale that’s the kind epic adventure it is and I love the world because it’s inspired by my Nigerian heritage.

So, the names of the cities, the language they speak Yoruba when they’re trying to cast magic – I had to slip my parent’s names in there. So, I love that I was able to make this fantasy world inspired by my culture. . . . . [A]nother really cool thing about it is it really heavily features Orisha which is this awesome West African mythology and so I love that this book has these African gods and goddesses and adheres to the source of the magic. It is something that is so beautiful and so epic that –

I didn’t know they existed until I was 21! So, I’m excited to introduce it to an American audience and especially people of color because it means a lot when you see yourself depicted in a sacred way! That is something that is really important to me. And yeah, I love the characters! Dude, it’s like everything you know fantasy . . . is nothing without compelling characters and I really love these characters!

There are three main characters and they each have a point of view in the novel and – I don’t want to give too much away but it’s – they all have a lot of heart and they are all on very different sides of the battle. So, it’s been really fun for me to write the story and bring them together and hop in their minds. I just can’t wait for the readers to meet them!

TNE:  So, when did you come up with the story? How did it pop into your head? When did the characters speak to you?

Tomi Adeyemi:   Yeah this story was actually like – like a four-part inception over a period of years. I was would say the first part of the inception was – I don’t know if inception is the right word but I was going to keep saying it! [Laughs] The first layer of inception I think happened around – in 2011 after the first Hunger Games came out and there was this – or the Hunger Games movie came out and there was this backlash against the black characters in the book!

TNE:   I did hear about that! And that made me so upset!

Tomi Adeyemi:   It – it got – it broke my heart because people were . . .  just like, “Oh why did they make all the good characters black? It wasn’t sad that Ruth died because she’s black,” but they were literally saying the most horrible things!

TNE:  Exactly!

Tomi Adeyemi:  For me to see such hatred brought into a fictional setting and then applied to an 11-year-old black girl that is brutally murdered it really broke my heart! It devastated me but then it made me really angry because I was like, “Okay well I’m going to write a story so good with all black people in it but it’s going to be so good that you have to read it or you’re going to miss out!” So, that was kind of like my revenge mission. That was the first layer; [Laughs] really aggressive, really militant. In the second layer [much] lighter.

When I was in Brazil two or three – I think it was two summers ago.  I had gone there on a fellowship [intending] to study the history of slavery and compare it to America’s history of slavery and how that created these duel very different black identities in each country. But the whole museum that I had planned my trip around was closed and so I got there in Salvador, Brazil and I found out this museum was closed! It was going to be the pinnacle of my research!

So, I’m just wandering around and it starts raining and so I go into a gift shop and the gift shop owner is kicking out people who were there just to avoid the rain. Then I’m like, “okay look like you want to buy something,” I’m wide-eyed looking at things and that’s when I saw the Orisha for the first time and it was a poster with nine of the gods and goddesses and I had never seen black gods and goddesses.

When I saw it I was like, “Whoa! What is this?” I turned to my friend, “It looks like African the Last Air Bender,” and I need to know what this was and then that’s when I discovered the Orisha. . . . The rest of my trip which I had gone on intending to study one thing became the study of the Orisha and going to plays about them and looking at different cultural museums for them. That was two years ago and I knew I was going to do something with them but I just didn’t have the story.

The story came a year later when I was – I go on Pinterest a lot because I’m really inspired by art and I saw this beautiful painting of a black girl with luminescent green hair. . . . I saw it in the morning before work and I couldn’t stop looking at it!  I was showing everyone at work like, “Look at this!”

And they are like, [shrugging] “Okay.”

I was like, “Who is this? What does she do?” I was actually talking to my boyfriend that night and I was like, “Ah, what if she was in a market and someone ran into her and was like ‘you need to help me!’” and I was like, “Does that sound cool?” And he’s like, “That sounds cool!”

I [went] with it and it was an explosion from there and yeah; that is how it all kind of came together!

I got the different pieces of the story at different times …. The last piece of it – was sort of the Black Lives Matter movement and the police brutality. I feel like that’s where the heart of my story came from because I had this adventure but there was so much going on around me that was kind of taking me to the same feeling of heartbreak, anger, and hopelessness that I felt back in 2011 when I saw so much hatred towards fictional characters in the Hunger Games and so all those four things coming together -that’s where this book kind of exploded from.

TNE:  Okay so of the gods that you research do you have a favorite?

Tomi Adeyemi:   Yeah my favorite – so there’s over 600.

TNE:  Wow!

Tomi Adeyemi:   I narrowed it down to – I first narrowed it down to 15 and my editor was like, “Um, 15 is still a lot!”

And I was like, “You’re right!” So, I narrowed it back down to 10. My favorite is Oya and she’s in a real mythology she represents a couple of things like the passing of life and storms and the – like hurricanes and thunder ( . . . ) She’s epic! In the book, I sort of solidified her role as the goddess of life and death.  Yeah [she’s] my favorite! [Oya’s] also the goddess that the protagonist Zélie is connected to!

TNE:  Okay!

Tomi Adeyemi:   I definitely play favorites but I just – if you Google images of her it’s just like this beautiful really dark black woman in like epic red robes and silk things and so I love it and yeah that’s my favorite! So –

TNE:  You were talking earlier about superhero characters.

Tomi Adeyemi:   Yeah

TNE:  And you apparently love Storm.

Tomi Adeyemi:  . . . The funny thing is Storm is inspired by the Orisha too! She’s inspired by Oya!  I didn’t realize that!

TNE:   Me neither!

Tomi Adeyemi:  I’ve just always grown up loving Storm!

TNE:   I just learned something!

Tomi Adeyemi:   Exactly and I’ve been, “Right! Of course, this epic woman is derived from this epic mythology that people don’t know a lot about,” but yeah – so,  . . .  – my new favorite is RiRi Williams. I am all about that! I’ve seen like two people cosplaying her. If I was cosplaying her I would be Riri Williams because I just love it! . . . I don’t have my fro anymore but when I had my fro that was like perfect!

TNE:   Now you’re 23? (This was in July 2017)

Tomi Adeyemi:  I am going to be 24 in –

Adeyemi’s boyfriend:  Two weeks

Tomi Adeyemi repeats:  Two weeks! [Laughs]

TNE:  So, it just seems like just before your debut novel [is published] you got optioned for a movie! How did that happen?

Tomi Adeyemi:   It was really crazy and I still don’t fully know and my sweetie he’s laughing because it was a crazy period which he was a witness for and there was just a lot of me screaming and running around and swearing and crying.

The book was submitted to publishers and then there was the craziness around that. I was lucky enough to end up with McMillan and I love it here! It has been so awesome but I didn’t know that  . . .  the film agent had been submitting the book to people as well. . . .[T]he book deal closed on a Thursday and then that next Monday I found out I was – we were on vacation and I got these calls that were like, “Ah, where are you? Pick up your phone!”

And I was like, “What’s going on?”

“FOX wants to do a preemptive offer!”

I didn’t let myself get excited then because I didn’t really believe it! I also thought with how much hype the book had been getting and seeing what people were buying I thought it might get optioned.  I wanted all the details! I didn’t want myself celebrating.

[W]hen I talked to [my agents] about the details they were like, “Okay it’s the people that did Twilight, The Maze Runner and…– they love this and they are committed to – the representation . . .  and not whitewashing,” [which] is really important to me.

“They are committed to that and they want to have you involved. . . . .They are not optioning it. [Fox] want[s] to purchase it! They actually want to make this!”

I was like, “What you mean?”. . . it’s hard to make a movie,”

My agents: “No, they really want to do this! Not [buy the] option and wait. They are actually trying to get going!”

[There was] a lot of screaming . . . swearing, and a lot of crying  [Laughs]

TNE:  A lot of hugging!

Tomi Adeyemi:  Yeah, I was like “what?!” I think that happened . . . on a Tuesday and so I barely told my family [when] a Deadline article went up! So, it’s like I still hadn’t processed everything [before it] was announced and then everyone was like “Ahhhh!”

I still don’t know what’s happening and I still don’t understand what happened. So . . . it is still insane! I am still waiting for someone to pull out the rug and say, “Aha! Got you!”

TNE:  Yeah!

Tomi Adeyemi:   I’ve met with the producers [and] with the film executive at Fox.  It’s just been –awesome! . . . They’ve been just so passionate for the story and they connected with it in such a real way! So – and even that feels like even more of a dream because I’m like, “How is this possible that not only this is happening but this is happening with such incredible passionate nice people?” [B]ecause that’s – I don’t want to say that’s rare but . . . I work in Hollywood so I know it’s not always like that! So .  . . yeah I still don’t believe it but I’m so excited for it!

TNE:  I’m excited for you! Like again I just read it and I’m like, “Oh my gosh that is so awesome!” So rare!  You have authors that have been at it for years and now you’re just getting started with a movie deal and you haven’t even debuted yet!

Stay tuned for more of my conversation with Adeyemi, we talk about her first time at SDCC and I try to convince her having a cat is the way to go!

The post Tomi Adeyemi is Going Places appeared first on The Nerd Element.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/blog/2018/03/happy-jediday.html

Today, March 8th, is hereby known as Jedi Day. This is because today in Hollywood, California, Mark Hamill will be recognized for his contribution to entertainment with his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The monkeys at ThinkGeek want to take the time to celebrate Mark Hamill and everything we love about the Jedi.

http://www.blackenterprise.com/michael-b-jordan-adopts-rooney-rule-for-hollywood/

When Frances McDormand closed her Oscar acceptance speech last weekend with the phrase “inclusion rider,” very few had ever heard the term based on the scanty applause in the audience and the spike in Google searches.

Deemed the Rooney Rule for Hollywood, Stacy L. Smith, who directs the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California, introduced the idea in a 2014 column:

What if A-list actors amended every contract with an equity rider? The clause would state that tertiary speaking characters should match the gender distribution of the setting for the film, as long as it’s sensible for the plot. If notable actors working across 25 top films in 2013 had made this change to their contracts, the proportion of balanced films (about half-female) would have jumped from 16 percent to 41 percent. Imagine the possibilities if a few actors exercised their power contractually on behalf of women and girls. It wouldn’t necessarily mean more lead roles for females, but it would create a diverse onscreen demography reflecting a population comprised of 50 percent women and girls.

An “inclusion rider” is a clause that actors and actresses can ask to be inserted into their contract that would require diversity among a film’s cast and crew.

In light of the global success of the Black Panther movie, actor Michael B. Jordan announced yesterday that he will be adopting the diversity clause for all the projects his production company, Outlier Society takes on going forward.

“In support of the women & men who are leading this fight, I will be adopting the Inclusion Rider for all projects produced by my company Outlier Society,” the post read. “I’ve been privileged to work with powerful woman & persons of color throughout my career & it’s Outlier’s mission to continue to create for talented individuals going forward.”

In support of the women & men who are leading this fight, I will be adopting the Inclusion Rider for all projects produced by my company Outlier Society. I’ve been privileged to work with powerful woman & persons of color throughout my career & it’s Outlier’s mission to continue to create for talented individuals going forward. If you want to learn more about how to support the cause – link in bio. #OutlierSociety #AnnenbergInclusionInitiative

A post shared by Michael B. Jordan (@michaelbjordan) on Mar 7, 2018 at 3:03pm PST

The announcement comes just a day after Netflix CEO’s Reed Hastings said his company has no interests in doing such a thing. Reed said he would rather have his staff speak with filmmakers to determine how diverse the overall cast and crew on a film is.

“We’re not so big on doing everything through agreements,” Hastings said at a press briefing in his office. “We’re trying to do things creatively.”

In January, comedian and Oscar-winning actress Monique called for a boycott of the movie streaming service over gender and pay disparity issues, noting that Netflix allegedly offered her $500,000 for a comedy special while offering millions in compensation to Amy Schumer, Dave Chappelle, and Chris Rock.

While the company, which has an estimated 117 million subscribers continues to play an important role in Hollywood, putting on more shows with diverse casts and producers is a great example of the easiest, quickest, and least permanent execution of diversity, noted Black Enterprise Editor-at-Large Alfred Edmond Jr.

While the company deserves praise for the diversity of its shows, its board is made up of white men and five women, with African Americans only making up 4% of its staff and leadership.

The post What Is An ‘Inclusion Rider’ and Why Is Michael B. Jordan Using One? appeared first on Black Enterprise.

https://www.essence.com/celebrity/david-oyelowo-talks-gringo-selma

David Oyelowo did not hold back at a recent press luncheon, where ESSENCE and a group of reporters got to discuss the actor's latest film, Gringo. In the film, Oyelowo plays a hapless businessman named Harold, who finds himself mixed up with a drug cartel and his life in shambles. Originally written for a white man, Oyelowo brought a bit of himself and his Nigerian background to the role, convincing director Nash Edgerton to let him play Harold as a Nigerian immigrant. [brightcove id=4072766873001] "The name of the character was originally Harold Salinger and he was a white character living in Chicago with his wife," Oyelowo said at a press luncheon in New York. "Every now and again, I'll read something and the way I know that it's getting under my skin is I start picturing myself in the movie. I just started picturing myself in it and I thought, 'Wow, I wonder if the filmmaker would picture me in it.'" Needless to say, Edgerton was clearly impressed with Oyelowo's take on Harold. The actor's decision to play Harold as a Nigerian immigrant was partially inspired by seeing his father work so hard to give his family a better life. "There was something about the situations he finds himself in–my dad would hate me saying this—that reminds me of my dad. The reason I say that is because my parents were immigrants to the UK and when you are a fish out of water, when you are new to a place, you trust people maybe more than you should." He adds, "If someone says you're getting a promotion, you're like, 'I'm gonna work really hard.' I saw my parents do that and I said [to Edgerton], 'What do you think about me making him Nigerian, a Nigerian immigrant?' And he went, 'Oh! Okay, I never really thought of it.' I started doing the lines as a Nigerian. I grew up, well, I was in the UK, but I lived in Nigeria for seven years, from the age of six to13. I just did some of the lines as I saw it and he went 'Oh my goodness.'" Oyelowo's decision to play Harold as a Nigerian immigrant was also a way to bring a different depiction of Black characters to the screen. "The beautiful thing is that my character Harold can’t be written off as someone who’s not bright or someone that can be dismissed. With the choices I make I’m determined as an actor to bring complexity to what it is to be a black person on planet earth in everything I do. I can’t afford to play caricatures or stereotypes." And, Oyelowo is a master at bringing complexity to the screen as evidenced in Selma, where he plays Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The film received tons of praise from critics and fans in 2014. However, despite all of the positive reactions, it only received two Oscar nominations. Oyelowo revealed that the film was essentially shut out after a negative campaign brought on by a rival studio. "The attacks we faced were real. It was a rival studio who planted stories about how we had marginalized Dr. King in our film. That narrative took over the period of voting from the Academy and the moment the voting stopped, the story disappeared." He adds that Selma director, Ava DuVernay, whose lack of nomination for Best Director stunned many, had to step in to stop demonstrations. "The protests...people were going to go into the theater. People had bought tickets to go into the Oscars and they were going to hold placards up during the telecasts." Selma went on to win Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song at the 2015 Academy Awards, but lost Best Motion Picture of the Year to Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Now, after #OscarSoWhite and recent nominations and wins at the 2018 Academy Awards, Oyelowo seems optimistic about the possibilities ahead for Black filmmakers, especially considering that new companies are willing to take risks. "Now, isn't it amazing? Disney is behind Black Panther. Disney is behind A Wrinkle in Time. Disney is behind Queen of Katwe. I'm very aware that we are in a moment right now that is going to be written about. That my role in Gringo, a studio would not have sanctioned that. The difference? You have companies like Netflix and Amazon who are not as tied to the traditional way of thinking as the big studios that are prepared to take a risk." Catch Gringo in theaters now.