Last awards season’s Best Actress race was one of the most turbulent. Post-Golden Globes, Nicole Kidman, seemed a lock for her role in “Being the Ricardos,” despite the initial industry buzz for Kristen Stewart, the ever-lively Lady Gaga bandwagon, and some not totally unreasonable outside shouts for Olivia Colman, while Jessica Chastain ultimately took it all. With the industry now at its most productive since the pandemic began, this year’s race is shaping up to be just as fierce as the last: Margot Robbie, Danielle Deadwyler, and Naomi Ackie are already in the running, as is Viola Davis, whose film “The Woman King” now has its first trailer.
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The setting for this historical epic is The Kingdom of Dahomey, a region of West Africa (now present-day Benin) that existed from the 17th to early 20th century. Davis plays Nanisca, a general of an all-female military unit waging war against the enslaving French colonialists. The movie has a star-studded supporting cast, which includes Thuso Mbedu (“The Underground Railroad”), Lashana Lynch (“No Time to Die”), John Boyega (“Star Wars: Episodes VII-IX”), and Jayme Lawson (“Farewell Amor”).
At this year’s CinemaCon, Davis, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Fences” in 2016, and has received three other Oscar nominations, called “The Woman King” her “magnum opus.” She cited the late Cicely Tyson as her inspiration not only for this film but throughout her career. “I just knew that when I was nine years old, and I saw [her] for the first time and saw that vision jump out of the screen, the radical power that gave me to believe in something bigger than my world, it touched down and landed in me and it landed in a generation of artists.”
Director Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Old Guard”) co-wrote the script with Dana Stevens (“Fatherhood,” “City of Angels”). The film also features music from five-time Grammy winner Terence Blanchard, who has been behind some of the most memorable cinematic scores and soundtracks of the last few decades: “BlacKkKlansman,” “Da 5 Bloods,” “One Night in Miami,” “25th Hour,” and “Malcolm X.”
“The Woman King” has been set for a September 16 release which likely means we’ll see it at the Toronto International Film Festival first in early September. Watch the new trailer below: