We spoke w/ director Gina Prince-Bythewood about TheWomanKing and how ‘Black Panther’s success changed everything.
With The Woman King now playing in theaters, I recently got to speak with director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s about making the movie inspired by true events. During the interview, Bythewood talked about how the success of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther opened the door for The Woman King to be made, what she learned making The Old Guard that helped her on this film, the challenge of filming the action scenes, and the editing process.
GINA PRINCE-BYTHEWOOD: I absolutely believe the success of Black Panther opened the door for this to be made. It was being developed prior to Black Panther coming out, but it didn't have its green light. Black Panther changed everything, changed the game, changed culture, changed perception. Showed the value in our stories and that audience would come out and see our stories. So thank you Ryan Coogler for making such a dope movie.
When you're going, you're on take 14, 15, 16, and it's just not working, you can't stop. You can't suddenly say, "I'm running out of time and let's just move on." So knowing how long you have to go at it and how long the actors have to have that type of stamina as well. But all of these actors, they wanted to be great. They never quit.