“King Richard” is ruling Telluride. Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Warner Bros. biopic about Richard Williams, the hard-driving father of straight-outta-Compton tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, played to a packed house Friday afternoon, building Best Actor buzz for its star and producer, Will Smith. He held the rights to the tennis duo’s story, but it was Jada Pinkett-Smith who suggested her husband meet with Green after she served on the Sundance jury in 2018, the year that the young director broke out with “Monsters and Men.”
This full-bodied performance marks Smith’s best shot at an Oscar in years. He’s been nominated twice, both for roles in which he had to fully inhabit living, breathing people: Boxer Muhammad Ali in Michael Mann’s “Ali” in 2002, and Chris Gardner, a man who rose from homelessness to become a stockbroker and motivational speaker, in Gabrielle Muccino’s 2007 “The Pursuit of Happyness.
This full-bodied performance marks Smith’s best shot at an Oscar in years. He’s been nominated twice, both for roles in which he had to fully inhabit living, breathing people: Boxer Muhammad Ali in Michael Mann’s “Ali” in 2002, and Chris Gardner, a man who rose from homelessness to become a stockbroker and motivational speaker, in Gabrielle Muccino’s 2007 “The Pursuit of Happyness.
- 9/4/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Richard Williams is divorcing his wife and accusing her of jacking social security checks and forging his signature to steal property right out from under him. Venus and Serena's 75-year-old dad filed docs in Florida to split from 38-year-old Lakeisha Williams, but the divorce is almost overshadowed by what he claims she's doing, as first reported by Daily Mail. In the docs, Richard says his wife of 7 years has forged his name on a...
- 6/14/2017
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
Veteran broadcast journalists Maiken Baird and Michelle Major spent four years obtaining access to the private world of tennis superstars the Williams sisters for "Venus and Serena," which debuted last September at the Toronto Film Festival. But when the tennis documentary distilled from 450 hours of footage finally premiered, it did so without the Williams sisters. On September 11, they withdrew their support of the film. The sisters signed on knowing they would not have final approval over the film's content, say the filmmakers. As first reported by the La Times, they disagreed with how their father, Richard Williams, was portrayed, and despite several adjustments to the film, the sisters--particularly Venus--were not satisfied at the time of the Toronto premiere. (The festival had moved the premiere date to accommodate their busy schedules.) At a Q & A following the film, Baird said that the Williams sisters simply haven't had time to adjust to seeing themselves.
- 5/10/2013
- by Anne Thompson and Sophia Savage
- Thompson on Hollywood
Though it focuses primarily on the Willams’ career and personal lives in 2011, the documentary “Venus and Serena” covers their entire lives, beginning even before the elder Venus was born. Their father Richard Williams wrote an extensive plan for his daughters' success in tennis before Venus entered the world, not taking into account her abilities (or her sister Serena’s, for that matter). The film bounces between the near-present and the past, relating their training in the early ‘90s, growth and fame in the late ‘90s and maturity in the ‘00s and beyond. Footage from old interviews is interspersed with current-day interactions with the athletes to create a holistic picture of careers that are still going strong, despite opposition throughout their time as pros. Being raised in Compton doesn’t seem to fit with many people’s ideas about the normally aristocratic sport, and that resistance didn’t end once the...
- 5/9/2013
- by Kimber Myers
- The Playlist
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