For more than three decades, Nia Long has found her way into some of Black America’s most beloved and quotable films and TV shows: Boyz n the Hood, Friday, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Best Man, Love Jones. That last title alone inspired a generation of spoken-word poets, for better or worse, and has been playing on a loop in the cultural imagination ever since—which is why she’s teaming back up with costar Larenz Tate for a new romantic drama. Long specializes in Black stories, told straight, with universal appeal, and she’s been name-dropped by everyone from Jay-Z to J. Cole to A Tribe Called Quest as shorthand for what fine looks like.
At 55, she’s also still the baddest. “I want what I want, and I want it the way that I want it,” she tells Playboy. Now she’s taking on the highest-stakes role of her career: Katherine Jackson in Michael, the most anticipated and contested biopic in years. Long sat down with writer and cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux in Los Angeles to talk about her work, and why freedom is all she ever really wanted.
Read now: https://www.playboy.com/read/entertainment-culture/the-playboy-interview-nia-long
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3 Comments
I had no clue playboy was still around.
Couldn’t bother to proof read this thing, I found errors by the second paragraph. Playboy really dropped in standards
Still can’t believe Ime Udoka cheated on her.