It was nearly eight years ago that Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight made history when it won Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay, at the 89th Academy Awards. Now, the award-winning filmmaker is in the spotlight again for box office hit Mufasa: The Lion King and Spirit Award-nominated sports biopic The Fire Inside. Jenkins recently sat down with RT’s Jacqueline Coley to talk about the upcoming film that centers on Olympic boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields and when he was inspired to write the script.
Jacqueline Coley for Rotten Tomatoes: Talk about being tapped to write the script [for The Fire Inside] and then how you sort of stuck with it through its many iterations until it eventually found Rachel [Morrison] directing it.
Barry Jenkins: I saw the documentary [T-Rex] for this, I want to say it was before Moonlight even premiered at Telluride [Film Festival]. I just really loved the story of Claressa Shields and I had never heard of Claressa before I saw the doc. But the moment I watched it, I was like, ‘Yeah, I would love to be a part of this.’ And yet, even at that moment back then, I was like, ‘But I can’t direct it. I think you need you need someone else to direct this, but I would love to be the writer of it. I feel like there’s something I could bring to it as just the writer.’
Watch the video above for the full interview with Barry Jenkins.
The Fire Inside and Mufasa: The Lion King are now in theaters. Get your tickets on Fandango today!
