When she went in to pitch herself to direct the new film “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat,” Tina Mabry wound up crying because the material meant so much to her. She thought she had lost the job, but by the time the director got home, she had received a call that she had the gig.
Based on the popular novel of the same name, “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat” is a drama about the friendship between three Black women – Barbara Jean (Sanaa Lathan), Clarice (Uzo Aduba), and Odette (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) – who are longtime best friends and have dubbed themselves with the titular name. When Mabry read the novel and the first adaptation, it blew her away.
“To look at this story of these three women and their friendship, it reminded me of my family, my friendships,” she told Georgia Voice. “What made me so emotional was to see a story that was so raw, very authentic. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a film about friendships. Friendships have a love story, and I wanted to catch that – what does it look like, how friends hold us up after we go through so many storms, how do our Supremes show up when life is giving us every blow that it can?”
Mabry feels in Hollywood, there are a number of stories about women in their 20s. Yet those same women disappear when they are in their 40s.
“I don’t know where we go but we come back again when we are someone’s grandma,” she said. “We don’t tell about the 30s through 50s and that age range. I really wanted to show the vitality and the life we still have of what [these women’s] friendships are going through, what their careers are going through, how we are battling our health at times. I feel like actors who are impeccably talented are sidelined for a long time because Hollywood doesn’t have a space for them.’’
She is quick to credit her ensemble, starting with the superstar trio at the center.
“To get Aunjanue, Sanaa, and Uzo – you are living in director heaven,” Mabry said. “They were attracted to much of the same things I was – that this was the kind of film we had not seen in 25 or 30 years, that we were missing, and the honesty which is portrayed. We are talking about the issues that we sweep under the rug. We talk about things that are in the gray, and they were really getting a chance to show their chops. These are three trained thespians who have been at this a long time. I wanted to give a showcase to the other actors as well.”
Maby was surprised that it was a man – Edward Kelsey Moore – who wrote the book and how in tune he was with the female journey. While she acknowledges that not everything in the novel could fit into a two-hour movie, she feels the film is true to the heartbeat and soul of its source material.
Mabry’s 2009 movie “Mississippi Damned” helped put her on the map. On the festival circuit, she really began to understand how powerful cinema could be.
“I think it’s totally a different thing when you make a film, and you see it from the other side,” she said.
Films such as “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Love & Basketball” convinced her to not go to law school and become a filmmaker.
“When I made ‘Mississippi Damned,’ I had people coming up to me at the time saying, ‘I am making different career choices based on this film,’” she said. “Sometimes, you have to see what can be possible in order to know you can go after it. I have never remiss in knowing that I am a Black gay woman in this industry and the power that that holds, that people are looking at that and that has provided inspiration.”
Traveling with that film internationally showed her how universal it was.
“I was just telling my own family life story,” Mabry said. “That can be a bit esoteric but it wasn’t because we were dealing with a lot of things that touched a lot of families. I found that the film connected with a lot of people.”
Yet, “Mississippi Damned” did not reach the heights she wanted it to.
“What hurt is that we put so much into the film and sacrificed a lot and it didn’t quite hit where we knew it deserved,” she said. “I was making short films and teaching, hanging in there, but it was hard, and I was thinking that maybe I am someone who can teach but not do.”
Then she had her own Supremes moment of people telling her not to leave the industry.
“A month later, Ava Duvernay called me and asked me to write, direct, and produce on ‘Queen Sugar’ season one, and then two weeks after Gina Prince-Bythewood asked me to be in the writing room for ‘Shots Fired.’”
She’s been going full steam ever since.
“The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can Eat” is now streaming on Hulu.