Day: April 10, 2019

You might have heard the story by now: That Marsai Martin pitched “Little,” a modern spin on “Big,” to Universal Pictures at age 10. It’s true, she did, but that precocious move was preceded by another, more impressive act of rebellion and a pivotal moment in putting her on the path to becoming the youngest executive producer ever: She fired her agents after the first year of “black-ish.”

The ABC show, in which she plays the Johnson’s whip-smart daughter, Diane, was on its first hiatus and Martin and her family wanted to know what opportunities there were.

“They were like, ‘You should just stick to “black-ish,” just chill, take a break,'” Martin said.

Besides, the agents explained, there weren’t any roles for a young black girl out there. But the Martins persisted and suggested creating something themselves.

“They kind of just laughed at us. They didn’t see the vision. But I think they didn’t see it because they saw what I looked like: A little black girl that no one would want to see,” Martin said. “So, we fired them.”

Four years later, it’s almost ancient history for the now 14-year-old sitting in the conference room of Genuis Productions, the company she founded, as she prepares for “Little” to hit theaters nationwide Friday.

The office space is a projection of Martin herself, with accent walls in her favorite color blue, her and her baby sister’s preferred snacks in the break area (Goldfish crackers, rice crispy treats, etc) and a PS4 in the lobby (as well as her NAACP Image Awards). Her own office is well on its way to having the Alice in Wonderland-feel she wants with “grand plants” and colorful throw pillows. There’s also a very teen-appropriate Polaroid wall, and a perfect view of the Universal sign out the window.

“It’s a creative spot for me and a place where I can express how I feel and just get my mind in a cool place where I can just come up with anything I want,” Martin said. “I’m very grateful and doing it with my family is even better.”

After the break with the agents, “black-ish” creator Kenya Barris helped nudge Martin in the right direction, securing a meeting with his friend, producer Will Packer, who’s been behind such high-profile hits as “Girls Trip” and “Night School,” to hear her idea.

“I didn’t expect much, because, you know, I hear a lot of pitches and most of them aren’t great. I said ‘Listen, I’m sure she’s sweet. I’ll do it as a courtesy,'” Packer said. “And she comes in and she’s got this fully thought out, really coherent, cohesive narrative, with characters and themes. I was like,’She’s how old again?'”

Her story would be about bullying and female empowerment.

“We wanted it to be as authentic as possible… even though it’s a fantasy, body-swap film,” Martin laughed.

She stars as the young Jordan Sanders, a science-obsessed teen who is bullied so much in high school that she grows up to be an insufferable bully herself, as the head of a major tech company. The adult version of Jordan is played by Regina Hall, who Martin had worked with on “black-ish.” Rounding out the cast is “Insecure’s” Issa Rae (“a creator like me”), as Jordan’s undervalued assistant.

Martin loved the whole development process and is glad that it took a few years for filming to start, allowing her to mature a little bit into who she is today. And then, this past February, something even bigger came along: Martin got a first-look deal with Universal, too.

“It was so exciting, but to be honest, I didn’t even know what it meant at the beginning,” Martin said. “I was like, ‘Oh cool! What is that? Like, OK, this seems very professional. Am I in it now? Like is this some Jordan Peele-type stuff?'”

When she realized that it meant the studio gets first dibs on anything she creates, she was thrilled.

“I was like, ‘Oh, OK! So I can create whatever I want?’ I thought that was so cool because this mind has a lot of things,” she said. “I can keep creating things that people don’t get to see often.”

She knows it’s unusual to be wielding this much creative power in Hollywood at this young age, but she also enjoys catching people off guard.

“It’s like, ‘Oh, snap, THIS girl, created this film?’ And it’s kind of shocking,” she laughed.

Her life is pretty crazy right now promoting “Little” and developing new films and television projects. She’s home-schooled with a tutor, which she prefers, and she doesn’t have any regrets about missing out on the high school experience.

“I used to be the shy kid who would barely raise her hand or speak her mind,” she said.

Even now she suffers her own share of self-consciousness.

“That’s something that I have to work on: Self-confidence and loving myself,” she said. “Your girl gets a lot of anxiety. It’s OK. It’s a learning process. I feel like a lot of kids my age get it, whether they’re in the industry or not.”

When she does have a moment to unwind, she plays “gruesome” video games like “Mortal Combat,” gets facials, massages, cooks and sometimes just watches YouTube. But even then her wheels are spinning about possible collaborations with her favorite YouTubers.

Down the line, she wants to direct and write and, basically, do all the things.

Packer, for one, is convinced she will.

“She’s got a long, strong career ahead of her. And if she chooses to continue in movies and television, you better watch out because she’s going to make a serious mark,” Packer said. “But she’ll make a mark wherever she ends up.”
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The creators of global smash television series “Game of Thrones” say they knew how they would end the show five years ago, and are anxious that fans will like it.

“We want people to love it. It matters a lot to us,” said D.B. Weiss, who along with David Benioff created the series that is based on the novels of George R.R. Martin.

“We also know that no matter what we do, even if it’s the optimal version, that a certain number of people will hate the best of all possible versions,” Weiss told Entertainment Weekly in an interview that was published on Tuesday.

The final six episodes of HBO’s award-winning medieval fantasy series set among warring families in the fictional kingdom of Westeros launches on Sunday and concludes on May 19.

Weiss said he and Benioff had “known the major beats for at least five years” of how the show would end.

Season 7, which was broadcast in 2017, saw the characters head toward a great battle over the Iron Throne while a zombie army of White Walkers, led by the undead Night King, march south to destroy humanity.

The two executive producers said it has grown harder and harder to keep details of the plots secret. Although based on Martin’s series of novels “A Song of Ice and Fire,” the show has long gone beyond Martin’s books.

“We won’t be relieved until the final episode airs without a leak. We’re certainly happy we got through production without a leak. But there have been issues that have happened in post-production, or a week before an episode airs. So we’re entering the most dangerous time,” Benioff told Entertainment Weekly.

Weiss and Benioff said they plan to go offline when the finale is aired in May.

“We’ll be in an undisclosed location, turning off our phones and opening various bottles,” said Weiss.

“I plan to be very drunk and very far from the internet,” added Benioff.

“Game of Thrones” has won multiple Emmy awards and is HBO’s biggest hit ever with some 30 million viewers in the United States and an army of devoted fans worldwide.
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Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk could pull off a Booker Prize double.

Tokarczuk, who won last year’s Man Booker International Prize for “Flights,” was announced Tuesday as a 2019 award finalist for “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.”

Her environmental crime story is among the six books from Europe, South America and the Middle East on the shortlist for the international prize, which rewards fiction in translation.

The prize is a counterpart to the Man Booker Prize for English-language novels and is open to books in any language that have been translated into English.

Five of the six books up for the award this year have women authors, and all six were translated by women.

The contenders include conspiracy-theory saga “The Shape of the Ruins” by Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vasquez; French writer Annie Ernaux’s portrait of France since the 1940s, “The Years”; and “The Pine Islands” by Germany’s Marion Poschmann, in which a beard expert suffers a midlife crisis.

They are joined by Alia Trabucco Zeran’s debut novel “The Remainder,” about a group of Chileans reckoning with their country’s past, and “Celestial Bodies,” a tale of three sisters by Jokha Alharthi from Oman. Alharthi is the first writer from the Gulf to be a finalist for the prize.

The winner of the 50,000 pound ($65,000) prize — split between author and translator — will be announced May 21 at a ceremony in London.Six books from Europe, South America and the Middle East are finalists for the Man Booker International Prize for fiction in translation.

The contenders announced Tuesday include an environmental crime tale, “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones Of the Dead,” by the author of last year’s prize- winner, Olga Tokarczuk of Poland.

Other finalists include “The Shape of the Ruins” by Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vasquez; French writer Annie Ernaux’s “The Years’;’ and “The Pine Islands” by Germany’s Marion Poschmann.

They are joined by Alia Trabucco Zeran’s debut novel “The Remainder” and “Celestial Bodies” by Jokha Alharthi from Oman.

The winner of the 50,000 pound ($65,000) prize, which is split between the author and the translator, is scheduled to be announced in London on May 21.
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