Beyonce’s ‘Black Is King’ Was Supposed to Have More Footage…Then the Pandemic Happened
“We were planning to add more and the universe said ‘nope,'” one of the visual album’s directors says
Jeremy Fuster | August 16, 2020 @ 12:37 PM
Last Updated: August 16, 2020 @ 12:49 PM
Disney+
Beyonce’s new visual album “Black Is King” was the result of a year’s worth of collaboration between the pop star and dozens of Black filmmakers, actors and artists. But had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic, we might have gotten more.
In an interview with The Fader, three of the “Black Is King” directors, Kwasi Fordjour, Emmanuel Adjei and Blitz Bazawule, mentioned that they had plans for additional shooting with Beyonce in South Africa this past spring. But when the pandemic arrived and shut down international travel, the team was forced to reinvent the narrative they were trying to create with the footage they already had.
“We were planning to add more to the story! We had to table that idea and really look at everything we had and go, ‘okay, this is what we’ve got, here is the messaging, here is the story. How can we enhance this?'” Fordjour said. “We had the key ingredients and all of those things helped tell the story the way we told it.”
Bazawule saw the canceled shoot as a blessing in disguise.
“The timing of this piece could not have been better,” he said. “The fact that we were planning to add more and the universe said nope. We were shooting so much content that we never fully watched or listened to, so we had to go back and create from what we already had.”
Beyonce teamed with the filmmakers to reimagine the narrative of “The Lion King” — which inspired her 2019 album “The Gift” — with a new human focus anchored in African culture. The project was initially meant to be a series of unrelated videos but soon grew into a unified story that the filmmakers compared to a tapestry.
“The whole process of building this film felt like creating this painting and every brushstroke adds a new image like you’re discovering what you’re making,” Adjei said. “Sometimes you need to remove stuff, sometimes you need to add a little bit more. Sometimes you have to change your whole palette, but that was an essential part of this project. It was an unorthodox way of making a feature-length project.”
“Black Is King” is streaming now on Disney+.
18 Stars Who Lost Major Weight for a Role, From Christian Bale to Joaquin Phoenix (Photos)
Actors like Taylor Kitsch, Chris Hemsworth and Anne Hathaway have undergone dramatic weight loss for roles. Some of them have even been recognized with Oscars for their intense physical dedication.
Tom Hanks - "Philadelphia" (1993)
Tom Hanks lost 26 pounds for his Oscar-winning turn as AIDS patient Andrew Beckett in "Philadelphia."
Christian Bale became frighteningly thin for "The Machinist," dropping 60 pounds. This would not be the only time he would put his body through an extreme transformation, going to similar lengths for his part in "The Fighter" and "Rescue Dawn."
Anne Hathaway opened up her mouth to sing -- but apparently not to eat much -- for "Les Miserables," shedding around 25 pounds (not to mention a whole lot of hair in one harrowing scene) for the Oscar-winning role.
Matthew McConaughey upped his profile and won practically every possible acting award -- including an Oscar -- after dropping nearly 40 pounds to play a Texan with AIDS for the "Dallas Buyers Club."
McConaughey's co-star Jared Leto was no slouch in the weight-loss department either, shedding 30 to 40 pounds and picking up his own Oscar in the process.
Zoe Kravitz weighed just 90 pounds at the time of filming for "The Road Within," having lost 20 pounds for the part. But she revealed that like her character in that movie, she too had struggled with anorexia in her real life.
Chris Hemsworth - "In the Heart of the Sea" (2015)
Chris Hemsworth shocked the internet when the "Thor" hunk revealed the dramatic weight loss he endured to play a shipwreck survivor in the fact-based period drama.
Liam Neeson shed some serious weight for Martin Scorsese's historical drama "Silence." Then 65, Neeson at one point said he took his weight loss "too far" in service of the part.
Lily Collins had struggled with anorexia and bulimia in her own life, but she said that losing weight to play a woman suffering from anorexia was important to do justice to the role. She then worked closely with nutritionists to ensure she actually gained the weight back.
Netflix
Taylor Kitsch - "Waco" (2018)
Taylor Kitsch revealed on the "Ellen DeGeneres Show" that he lost 30 pounds to play cult leader David Koresh in Paramount Network's limited series "Waco." “I’d get 500 calories at breakfast and then it would go from like veggies in the mid-afternoon to chicken broth after 4 o’ clock. And then you go run, which is awesome!” he said.
Paramount Network
Joaquin Phoenix - "Joker" (2019)
The actor lost 52 pounds to play the role of Arthur Fleck, the troubled and deranged comedian who becomes the iconic Batman villain Joker. This was shortly after Phoenix beefed up to play a hitman in Lynne Ramsay's "You Were Never Really Here." "Joker" director Todd Phillips told Vanity Fair that the actor resembled a bird from the Gulf of Mexico having tar rinsed off its body.
Warner Bros.
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From Anne Hathaway to Beyoncé and Matthew McConaughey, Hollywood stars have a history of getting small for the big screen
Actors like Taylor Kitsch, Chris Hemsworth and Anne Hathaway have undergone dramatic weight loss for roles. Some of them have even been recognized with Oscars for their intense physical dedication.