Eventually, one of those roles would click and, to a person, everyone I encountered would profess their love for Ms. King. She's built a career off of that goodwill and she's taken on one of her most challenging roles in This Christmas. Typically known for playing strong, confident women, King takes the challenge of playing a wife who actually cuts her cheating husband's meat. Like everything she's done, King nails it. At first glance, you might never know her name, but you'll always love Regina King.

The Deadbolt: Not just the characters, but the people who play them in This Christmas - Delroy [Lindo], Loretta [Devine] - are so likable that it brings a question to mind - what's more important to you, a script and its character or the collaborators you're going to be working with?

Regina King: With this project, it was the cast. It definitely drew me more than the script. This movie is a testament to how when you have a cast like that you can turn something not-so-great into something incredible. Like the movie The Big Chill. If you read the original script and then you look at the movie, it's because you had Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, Bill Hurt - how do you beat that? We have the same thing in This Christmas.

DB: But, in general?

King: Well, for example, Jerry Maguire, it was the script that drew me to that project. Originally, when I auditioned the first time, Tom Cruise was not attached. They hadn't found Jerry Maguire. Cuba Gooding was the first person locked in on that movie. They had done table readings with Robin Williams as Jerry Maguire. It was the script on that one. So, it differs.

DB: So, This Christmas changed a lot from script level to the screen?

King: I would just say that the way this movie just jumps off the screen, it didn't jump off the pages like that. There was a lot of ad-libbing and natural things that actors like Loretta and Delroy, with their experience, do. They've done so much that they know when something needs more air or we need to take a little air out of it. When you have veterans like that, it just makes it more colorful. People just sprinkle their own thing. And then you have the newcomers who are just so fresh and refreshing. The combination of the two is great.

DB: How did you guys build the family warmth? Did you do a lot of off-camera work or did it just come naturally?

King: It came naturally because it was these eight people. I couldn't see anybody else in these roles. We did not have time to rehearse. We had a few little workshopping on the script to bring it to what you see now. Everybody liked each other. Normally, somebody doesn't like each other when you have that many people working together all the time. We have like four huge scenes. Usually, a scene might have four or five people, but we had scenes that took all day because there were so many people. I think that there's no way for people to get a result like this when people don't like each other. You see it in the movie when that happens.

DB: You usually play really strong women and this character is more vulnerable. A: is that something that drew you to the part, and B: was it particularly challenging because it's not something that you usually do?

King: Yes, A, and yes, B. Like you noticed, I usually play stronger women and when you're audience is used to that, you know that you really have to be honest when you're playing something that's far from what your audience is used to seeing. It was difficult to execute, especially the scene when I was cutting his meat. That was really hard for me. Every time we did that take, I said in my mind "This is what we do all the time and there's nothing degrading about this. I love my husband and this is what I do." When I read the script, I was like "Hell no, who does that?" But [Director] Preston [Whitmore] said his sister did. If you say a person really did that, then I'm going to believe it and I'll believe it when I'm playing it.

DB: Family is such a part of the film. Can you speak a little about your family and how they've supported you?

King: The majority of the support in my life comes from my family and my friends. I really have a tight circle of friends that I consider family - a lot of women. Obviously, an actress that plays strong women all the time, clearly there are a lot of strong women around me. My mother is such a spiritual woman and she always comes up with these great 'zen sarcasms,' small little jewels that she's always planted in my or my sister's head. Being younger, I thought it went in one ear and out the other. But I still remember things like "Everything you do, do it with grace. And if you didn't go into it with grace, come out of it with grace." Little things like that.

Regina King Interview Page 2