What Makes Regina King So Sexy?

Regina King

Regina King has the most amazing affect on people. No one seems to be able to define it or pinpoint the exact source of it, but everyone seems to be captivated by her magnetic allure.

Here in the interview room at the Four Seasons Hotel on the edge of Beverly Hills, King’s enchanting personality and arresting presence not only disarms reporters, it engrosses them. People just seem to fawn over King, one of the stars of Our Family Wedding. Even crusty, crabby, cynical journalists — the ones with 20 or 30 years in the business who’ve analyzed and dissected the look of hundreds of Hollywood stars — needed drool cups when King sashayed silkily into the interview. And when her lips parted to reveal that megawatt grin, the room seemed to get a little brighter.


One reason for her appeal is the subtle, but impactful things she does that differentiate her from other celebrities. “How are youuuu?! Nice to meet youuuu!” King greets one reporter effusively, making contact with those eyes that are the color of a sunset. Most celebrities walk into a press conference-type situation and grunt a general greeting to everyone while making eye contact with no one.

As soon as King took her seat, she was suddenly drenched by a thundershower of praises from the normally bloodless writers who reserve their smiles for uncovering some embarrassing secret to splash on the front pages of tabloids.


“You look even better in person than on-screen,” declared a male journalist.

“I like your haircut,” a female reporter said on the heels of that comment.

“In the movie, your … body … is … on … point! What is your workout plan?” a third reporter announced to King as if she was ready to purchase King’s workout video on the spot. And to be truthful, King did sport arms in the movie that even first lady Michelle Obama would kill for.

“I’ve been an athlete all my life, but I think in recent movies, my body’s been exposed more,” says King, who plays Forest Whitaker’s  girlfriend in Our Family Wedding. “If you even go back to Enemy of the State, I’ve always been a person that feels it’s important to stay healthy. I’m competitive, so I don’t think that ever leaves you. My dad was like that. My dad, at 55, was racing kids on our block and winning.”

Right now, King is winning at this game called Hollywood that has resulted in scores of casualties — particularly African American ones. As she puts the finishing touches on her 30s, King is as breathtaking, in shape and in demand as she’s ever been. But what makes her appealing to a broad section of the American public goes deeper than her sculpted physique and flawless caramel skin.

Strength of Character

King does not do weak well. In fact, King doesn’t do weak, period. People find King sexy because she always plays a strong, formidable woman. This rule goes back to the days of the classic film, Boys N the Hood to Poetic Justice to Higher Learning to Enemy of the State to Jerry Maguire and extends  all the way to Our Family Wedding. And then there is the critically acclaimed police drama, “Southland,” that is thriving in its new home on TNT.

“I think that the one thing that is true is that I always play strong women because that’s mostly what I see. And from doing my research, most women that I know — black, white, purple, whatever color you want to be and whatever nationality you want to be — are not interested in seeing the quiet, submissive woman. I haven’t run into a woman on the street yet that said, ‘You know, I wish you would play someone weaker.’ I just don’t know any woman that feels that way,” she says.

But while her fans may get excited seeing her level a shotgun at a perp’s head or telling someone to get up against the wall with all the intensity of a blowtorch, King also displays strength in more subtle yet equally powerful ways.

For example, people find King sexy because she doesn’t make excuses about life or try to profit from pity. When King’s character Angela gets her feelings hurt by Forest Whitaker in Our Family Wedding, King explains that some of her friends have met similar fates,but refused to be bitter or broken by the experiences or make sweeping generalizations about black men.

“When the relationship doesn’t work out, they are not in the room in a mess. They are not keying up cars or slashing tires or being like ‘woe is me!’ they are mature enough and successful enough that they made the decision to have sex or make love to that man and made the mistake of thinking that because they care for [that man], [that means they] are in a relationship. A lot of women have made that mistake and a lot of men have made the mistake. … They say they are not leading the women on, but they were. It was important to me to represent these women.”

It was also important for King to present women responding to betrayal in a non-stereotypical way. When King’s lawyer character finds that her man has feelings for another woman, King did not mutate into the Tasmanian devil and destroy the wedding.

“That was a conscious decision,” she says resolutely, pleased that some of the reporters picked up on this point. “Most of us here that are black or those of us who are not black, know that we do not all act in the stereotypical way that we see so often in movies. It is important that all the colors of us are represented and it’s [a] sigh of relief that someone recognizes it. To hear [that] you saw it validates the decision that we made as an actor, director and producer to play it that way.”

We pause here as another reporter returns to King’s physical beauty. “Don’t beat me up for saying this, but when you first popped on the screen, I said to myself ‘she looks like a very young, beautiful Natalie Cole.’ ”

“Why would I be offended by that?” King says with those hypnotic eyes dancing. “Let me tell you, I ran into Natalie Cole and I said  ‘Oh my God! I kind of look like her,’ “ King says as the room erupted in laughter. “If it plays out for me physically like it played out for Natalie, I am sooo winning. She was beautiful to start with. But she’s even more lovely now than she was 30 years ago. So, yeah, I’ll take that.”

True to the Hustle

People find King sexy because she is a hustler in the truest sense of the word. In addition to Our Family Wedding and the hit TV drama “Southland,” King did the voice-over on two characters on the popular “Boondocks” cartoon series created by Aaron McGruder. King is also developing her own projects including a remake of The Big Chill.

“I personally like movies that really aren’t always about the big story or this big caper, but about relationships and people,” she says. “… The reason [The Big Chill] was so good is because they used the funeral to bring all these people together to talk about their stuff. And we have so much stuff and history to talk about as American people and as black people. I would love to see eight professionals in a room together — to talk about current relative things and how they affect us — and hear a lot of true emotions and pain that we haven’t dealt with as Americans kind of come out on-screen and see if life imitates that art.”

In TNT’s “Southland,” King, who plays detective Lydia Adams, shows how art imitates life. The show is popular because it takes viewers inside law enforcement officers’ lives for rare peeks at what makes them tick.

“Southland gives you a bird’s-eye and a fly-on-the-wall … person-in-the-room perspective of what goes on in L.A. So often with law enforcement we look at the cops as the bad guys. But we get to see why they make the decisions they make, why they decided to be an officer, how it affects them. And they have to take all that stuff home and still have to process that every day,” King explains. “So it’s not just about busting the perps, and taking them down to the precinct and doing a report and following the procedures. It’s about people who protect the city of L.A. It’s some grimy stuff. It’s some emotional stuff. You get to see the shiny parts of L.A. and you get to see the gritty parts of L.A.”

And much like the City of Angels, we’ve gotten to see King in many ways through a diverse career that spans a quarter century.

“It’s amazing. I enjoy my job so much. I have no problem with the 6 a.m. set calls. It’s this family that really loves the work that we’re doing, beyond the actors. It’s the people behind the scenes, the lighting crew, who make us look so great and make it feel so real … shooting through shadows,” King glows. “I’ll come to the set with my son. He sleeps, gets up, has his breakfast and the [Teamsters] take him to school. I’m like … I’ve never had a nanny, and they respected that and they said, ‘We’ll make it work.’ So it’s amazing. Absolutely amazing.”

So are you Regina. So are you.

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