Kasi Lemmons
Encyclopedia
Kasi Lemmons is an American
film
director
and actress, most notable for her work on the films Eve's Bayou
, The Caveman's Valentine
and Talk to Me
.(Bergman)
Lemmons was born in St. Louis
, Missouri
, the daughter of a poet
/psychotherapist
mother and a biology
teacher
father. When Lemmons was eight years old, her parents divorced, and she and her mother and two sisters moved to Newton, Massachusetts. Her mother remarried when she was nine.
Her passion for movies came at an early age, but becoming a director was her goal. “I wanted to do something more meaningful than going to auditions…” (Alexander, 255)
Lemmons is married to actor and director Vondie Curtis-Hall
. They have a son, Henry Hunter (born 1996) , and a daughter, Zora (1999).
Lemmons states that her husband is immensely supportive and feels that he is more relaxed than she is. Compared to how he works, she prefers the pressure of working on a set with the actors. As a director and a mother, Lemmons says that it gives her perspective. Her life outside of the movie set and Hollywood has kept her grounded. Though she is a Black woman, Lemmons identifies herself as an artist first and foremost in her career. “…I don’t wake up every day saying I’m a Black woman because it’s too given, but I wake up every day feeling like an artist and I feel I’m an artist.” (Alexander, 271)
Career=
In 1979, she made her acting debut in the television movie “11th Victim.” Lemmons performed with the Boston Children’s Theater at a young age and later attended New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts. She, then transferred to University of California at Los Angeles to major in history. However, she eventually left U.C.L.A. and enrolled in the film program at the New School for Social Research.
As a young child, Lemmons got her first role on TV on a local soap opera called You got a Right, a courtroom drama. She played the first and only Black girl who integrated to an all-white school. (Alexander, 254)
She appeared in Gridlock'd, the debut feature film (1997) by her husband, actor/director Vondie Curtis-Hall.
In 1997, Kasi directed the highly acclaimed film "Eve’s Bayou" starring Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Diahann Carroll and Jurnee Smollett. Lemmons wrote a narrative that wove together family drama in the story of a ten-year old girl and her family. (Hurd, 137) She created and directed the movie with an intentional use of universal significance. The movie is told by Eve, the main character who begins the movie in retrospective to the summer before when she notes, “ ‘ Memory is a selection of images…some elusive, some printed indelibly on the brain the summer I killed my father, I was ten years old.’” (Hurd, 137) Lemmons friend gave some insight on the film, saying that it would be something really strong that grabs you at the beginning.
The movie expresses certain themes and promotes an ambiance of mystery, sultry eroticism, and passion that transforms the characters throughout the movie. The film was not meant to be based on African American film work; however, it was meant to perceive human relationships in a different way. It attracted more white audiences than black. (Hurd, 137) Lemmons expressed in an interview with the Washington Post that the movie was about “friendship.” The theme of following your dreams is prominent and in the movie, the dreams are invested in another person. “ It’s a story about activitism and politics and community and how those things intersect. It’s a story about a man who had a voice that inspired…”
The casting for Eve’s Bayou was done by Lemmons as well. She specifically wanted Don Cheadle to be in her movie. She felt that Martin Sheen would fitting for the role of E.G. Sonderling, who was the head of the radio station. “He has the perfect balance of cool and conservative that we needed for the character and he’s wonderful in the movie.” She also selected Mike Epps, Cedric the Enterntainer, and Taraji Henson, the female lead, as actors for the movie. She had the opportunity to cast her husband, Vondie Curtis Hall.
In 2001 she directed Samuel L. Jackson in the film "The Caveman’s Valentine." The story line of this second film is about a homeless man whose effort was to solve a murder mystery. It involves, “unexplained ambiguities surrounding him that include moth seraphs that emerge from dancers and forceful rays that are emitted from the Chrysler Building, home of his imaginary arch enemy.” (Hurd, 138) Although Lemmons’s presence as a director was evident, this film was deemed a failure. Lemmons addresses the failure in an interview with Alexander, saying that compared to Eve’s Bayou, the two movies are different and complicated they cannot be compared. She tells the Alexander that it was rebellious movie due to her success in the other movie.
In 2002 Kasi conceived and helmed the tribute to Sidney Poitier for the 74th Annual Academy Award show. Shortly afterwards it was announced that Kasi would direct "The Battle of Cloverfield," a supernatural thriller about a small Southern town that becomes haunted by its ghosts, from her own script for producer Laura Ziskin and Columbia Pictures.
Kasi Lemmons directed the movie Talk to Me, released in 2007. The movie is about a radio personality, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist. The visual tone shifts over the course of the film with the subject matter and circumstances of the film's times (during the 1960s through the 1970s and early 1980s) The film features signature American soul sounds of the 1960s and 1970s, including Sam Cooke'sHe is commonly known as the King of Soul for his unmatched vocal abilities and influence on the modern world of music "A Change Is Gonna Come", a song that plays in its entirety during a key period in "Talk To Me". Lemmons said that "we went through different choices of the song. We wondered, 'has it been overused?' Terence Blanchard scores the music for "Talk To Me", as a compliment to the original soul music from such artists as James Brown, who is played by an actor in one scene during the film. At first directors did not see Lemmons fitting for the director the movie based on her two previous films and the fact that she was a woman. However, she won them over by sharing her view on what the movie should be like. It was not a challenge for Lemmons to make a movie that alternated between comedy and drama. The main character Petey Greene represented “a way of speaking loudly.” The movie making industry was a challenge for Lemmons because she needed to show the fight to in the 60’s to make people change. Talk to Me portrays how important the meaning of friendship is. Lemmon’s movie direction of the movie captures the riots on the streets due to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and the popular Johnny Carson show, intertwining both comedy and drama. It was truly a movie that emcompasses the a part of revolutionary American history and how it changed America.
In an interview with George Alexander, Kasi Lemmons described her childhood as being involved in the arts. She participated on a television show called Zoom. A public television show for children Lemmons also made a documentary about homeless people called Fall from Grace. For her movie Eve’s Bayou , she transformed from an actor into a screen writer then into a director. The main character Eve, as Lemmons, imagined should embody a girl the reminded her of herself as a young girl. In the production of the movie, she mentioned that working with children is much easier since they take direction from authority well. (Alexander, 258) The film received radical criticisms because it gravitated toward Black filmmaking that was obvious and flaunting and direct. Lemmons was confident that she made a film that enticed people and it became the highest-grossing independent film of 1997. (Alexander, 263)
Lemmons has played Ardelia Mapp in The Silence of the Lambs and the interviewer Nina Blackburn in the mockumentary
Fear of a Black Hat
. She had a cameo appearance in Spike Lee
's School Daze
during a montage of Half-Pint's (Spike Lee) potential conquests. Lemmons won an NAACP Image Award
for Outstanding Director in a Motion Picture for the film Talk to Me
. Lemmons received a special first-time award, created just for her, from the National Board of Review and won the Director’s Achievement Award at the Ninth Annual Nortel Palm Springs Film Festival. (Alexander, 254)
Lemmons is currently working on a screenplay with her husband that he will direct. The movie will be based on a novel by Dian Hammond called The Impersonator. Both husband and wife will spend time together to make this movie.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and actress, most notable for her work on the films Eve's Bayou
Eve's Bayou
Eve's Bayou is a 1997 American drama film written and directed by Kasi Lemmons, who made her directorial debut with this feature. Samuel L...
, The Caveman's Valentine
The Caveman's Valentine
The Caveman's Valentine is a 2001 American mystery-drama film directed by Kasi Lemmons and starring Samuel L. Jackson based on George Dawes Green's novel of the same name. The film was released by Universal Focus, a subsidiary of Universal Studios and Focus Features.-Plot:A former family man and...
and Talk to Me
Talk to Me (2007 film)
Talk To Me is a 2007 biographical film about Washington, D.C. radio personality Ralph "Petey" Greene, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist, and Dewey Hughes, his friend and manager...
.(Bergman)
Lemmons was born in St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, the daughter of a poet
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
/psychotherapist
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
mother and a biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
father. When Lemmons was eight years old, her parents divorced, and she and her mother and two sisters moved to Newton, Massachusetts. Her mother remarried when she was nine.
Her passion for movies came at an early age, but becoming a director was her goal. “I wanted to do something more meaningful than going to auditions…” (Alexander, 255)
Lemmons is married to actor and director Vondie Curtis-Hall
Vondie Curtis-Hall
Vondie Curtis-Hall is an American actor and film director.As an actor, he is best known for his role as Dr. Dennis Hancock on the CBS medical drama Chicago Hope created by David E. Kelley.-Early life:...
. They have a son, Henry Hunter (born 1996) , and a daughter, Zora (1999).
Lemmons states that her husband is immensely supportive and feels that he is more relaxed than she is. Compared to how he works, she prefers the pressure of working on a set with the actors. As a director and a mother, Lemmons says that it gives her perspective. Her life outside of the movie set and Hollywood has kept her grounded. Though she is a Black woman, Lemmons identifies herself as an artist first and foremost in her career. “…I don’t wake up every day saying I’m a Black woman because it’s too given, but I wake up every day feeling like an artist and I feel I’m an artist.” (Alexander, 271)
Career=
In 1979, she made her acting debut in the television movie “11th Victim.” Lemmons performed with the Boston Children’s Theater at a young age and later attended New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts. She, then transferred to University of California at Los Angeles to major in history. However, she eventually left U.C.L.A. and enrolled in the film program at the New School for Social Research.
As a young child, Lemmons got her first role on TV on a local soap opera called You got a Right, a courtroom drama. She played the first and only Black girl who integrated to an all-white school. (Alexander, 254)
She appeared in Gridlock'd, the debut feature film (1997) by her husband, actor/director Vondie Curtis-Hall.
In 1997, Kasi directed the highly acclaimed film "Eve’s Bayou" starring Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Diahann Carroll and Jurnee Smollett. Lemmons wrote a narrative that wove together family drama in the story of a ten-year old girl and her family. (Hurd, 137) She created and directed the movie with an intentional use of universal significance. The movie is told by Eve, the main character who begins the movie in retrospective to the summer before when she notes, “ ‘ Memory is a selection of images…some elusive, some printed indelibly on the brain the summer I killed my father, I was ten years old.’” (Hurd, 137) Lemmons friend gave some insight on the film, saying that it would be something really strong that grabs you at the beginning.
The movie expresses certain themes and promotes an ambiance of mystery, sultry eroticism, and passion that transforms the characters throughout the movie. The film was not meant to be based on African American film work; however, it was meant to perceive human relationships in a different way. It attracted more white audiences than black. (Hurd, 137) Lemmons expressed in an interview with the Washington Post that the movie was about “friendship.” The theme of following your dreams is prominent and in the movie, the dreams are invested in another person. “ It’s a story about activitism and politics and community and how those things intersect. It’s a story about a man who had a voice that inspired…”
The casting for Eve’s Bayou was done by Lemmons as well. She specifically wanted Don Cheadle to be in her movie. She felt that Martin Sheen would fitting for the role of E.G. Sonderling, who was the head of the radio station. “He has the perfect balance of cool and conservative that we needed for the character and he’s wonderful in the movie.” She also selected Mike Epps, Cedric the Enterntainer, and Taraji Henson, the female lead, as actors for the movie. She had the opportunity to cast her husband, Vondie Curtis Hall.
In 2001 she directed Samuel L. Jackson in the film "The Caveman’s Valentine." The story line of this second film is about a homeless man whose effort was to solve a murder mystery. It involves, “unexplained ambiguities surrounding him that include moth seraphs that emerge from dancers and forceful rays that are emitted from the Chrysler Building, home of his imaginary arch enemy.” (Hurd, 138) Although Lemmons’s presence as a director was evident, this film was deemed a failure. Lemmons addresses the failure in an interview with Alexander, saying that compared to Eve’s Bayou, the two movies are different and complicated they cannot be compared. She tells the Alexander that it was rebellious movie due to her success in the other movie.
In 2002 Kasi conceived and helmed the tribute to Sidney Poitier for the 74th Annual Academy Award show. Shortly afterwards it was announced that Kasi would direct "The Battle of Cloverfield," a supernatural thriller about a small Southern town that becomes haunted by its ghosts, from her own script for producer Laura Ziskin and Columbia Pictures.
Kasi Lemmons directed the movie Talk to Me, released in 2007. The movie is about a radio personality, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist. The visual tone shifts over the course of the film with the subject matter and circumstances of the film's times (during the 1960s through the 1970s and early 1980s) The film features signature American soul sounds of the 1960s and 1970s, including Sam Cooke'sHe is commonly known as the King of Soul for his unmatched vocal abilities and influence on the modern world of music "A Change Is Gonna Come", a song that plays in its entirety during a key period in "Talk To Me". Lemmons said that "we went through different choices of the song. We wondered, 'has it been overused?' Terence Blanchard scores the music for "Talk To Me", as a compliment to the original soul music from such artists as James Brown, who is played by an actor in one scene during the film. At first directors did not see Lemmons fitting for the director the movie based on her two previous films and the fact that she was a woman. However, she won them over by sharing her view on what the movie should be like. It was not a challenge for Lemmons to make a movie that alternated between comedy and drama. The main character Petey Greene represented “a way of speaking loudly.” The movie making industry was a challenge for Lemmons because she needed to show the fight to in the 60’s to make people change. Talk to Me portrays how important the meaning of friendship is. Lemmon’s movie direction of the movie captures the riots on the streets due to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and the popular Johnny Carson show, intertwining both comedy and drama. It was truly a movie that emcompasses the a part of revolutionary American history and how it changed America.
In an interview with George Alexander, Kasi Lemmons described her childhood as being involved in the arts. She participated on a television show called Zoom. A public television show for children Lemmons also made a documentary about homeless people called Fall from Grace. For her movie Eve’s Bayou , she transformed from an actor into a screen writer then into a director. The main character Eve, as Lemmons, imagined should embody a girl the reminded her of herself as a young girl. In the production of the movie, she mentioned that working with children is much easier since they take direction from authority well. (Alexander, 258) The film received radical criticisms because it gravitated toward Black filmmaking that was obvious and flaunting and direct. Lemmons was confident that she made a film that enticed people and it became the highest-grossing independent film of 1997. (Alexander, 263)
Lemmons has played Ardelia Mapp in The Silence of the Lambs and the interviewer Nina Blackburn in the mockumentary
Mockumentary
A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...
Fear of a Black Hat
Fear of a Black Hat
Fear of a Black Hat is a 1994 American mockumentary film on the evolution and state of American hip hop music. The film's title is derived from the 1990 Public Enemy album Fear of a Black Planet...
. She had a cameo appearance in Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
's School Daze
School Daze
School Daze is a 1988 American musical-drama film, written and directed by Spike Lee, and starring Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, and Tisha Campbell-Martin...
during a montage of Half-Pint's (Spike Lee) potential conquests. Lemmons won an NAACP Image Award
NAACP Image Award
An NAACP Image Award is an accolade presented by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....
for Outstanding Director in a Motion Picture for the film Talk to Me
Talk to Me (2007 film)
Talk To Me is a 2007 biographical film about Washington, D.C. radio personality Ralph "Petey" Greene, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist, and Dewey Hughes, his friend and manager...
. Lemmons received a special first-time award, created just for her, from the National Board of Review and won the Director’s Achievement Award at the Ninth Annual Nortel Palm Springs Film Festival. (Alexander, 254)
Lemmons is currently working on a screenplay with her husband that he will direct. The movie will be based on a novel by Dian Hammond called The Impersonator. Both husband and wife will spend time together to make this movie.