As a central figure in a bevy of black film classics, Nia’s roles—and real life—trace the evolution of the modern black woman. Take a glimpse into the current state of the Long life, as we continue to worship at the temple of her familiar.
BY ANGELA BRONNER HELM | PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARC BAPTISTE | STYLING BY JASON BOLDEN
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NIA LONG HAS BEEN THERE FOR US.
For women, and those who adore the feminine, she ushered us through each stage of our lives in real time: whether it was our bewildering teens bearing witness to black bodies falling in inner-cities all across America, or later in the decade, when we still managed to fall in heady, mad love during our whirling 20s. She sometimes reflected our working class roots, or maybe the steep climb we took slaying corporate America in our 30s. For our 40s, Long’s characters have done it all: swirled, married, divorced, bore children—all with authenticity and poise.
For men, or those who embrace the masculine, Long has always been the kind of girl or woman you can confidently take home to momma. She is the poster girl for indisputable beauty: sun kissed, luminous brown skin and warm eyes with deep pools of a knowing sensuality. She’s the girlfriend who takes no mess, but still manages to be sweet, relatable and sexy. She’s the wife you know will hold you down without fail.
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As an actress, Long appears in no less than four classics in the African American film pantheon: Boyz n the Hood, Love Jones, Friday and The Best Man (five, if you count television’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). She has, in fact, been an integral part of our most beloved visual legacies.
Long has grown up with us and has transitioned from a Gen X hip-hop honey into a mother, wife and regularly working actress. As she navigates her 40s, she has managed to carve out an enduring representation of black womanhood through her impressive body of work.
“I’m a woman over 40, so thank God I’m working,” says Long, 45. “I’m not trying to be an ingénue anymore. I wouldn’t want those opportunities because then that would just mean that I haven’t grown.”
In April, Long returns to the big screen in Kegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s cinematic debut, Keanu. She also co-stars alongside Mike Epps in ABC’s half-hour comedy vehicle, Uncle Buck, slated to premiere in June.
“I think the whole point as an artist is that you want your work, in some sort of way, to reflect how you’ve evolved as a person and as a woman. The more you work, the smarter you are,” she reflects.
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LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOYS
Like the fictional Claire Huxtable, or the very real Michelle Obama, Long has a successful career, and works it well, but is proud and vocal about being a present mom. And like those other ladies, she also looks phenomenal. Her two boys, Massai Zhivago, 15, (with ex-husband Massai Z. Dorsey) and four-year-old Kez Sunday (with current beau Ime Udoka), are her foremost priority.
“I think parenting is one of those things you have to get right,” Long says emphatically. “I really am accountable for who I’m creating, or who I’m helping to create.”
Long’s parenting philosophy is simple: “I’m not okay with someone else raising my children. Do I have help? Absolutely. I couldn’t do it without help, but I really have to be here.”
Because of the way Long’s family situation is structured (Udoka, an assistant coach for the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, lives in Texas during the basketball season), the self-described uber-planner had to learn how to go with the flow and grab her Zen— and not just for the kids. The good news? The stretches away from Udoka “keeps the relationship sexy.”
“The disadvantage is that we don’t know how far we’re going to go in the playoffs. We could be in playoffs mode for the championship, and that could last until late June. If I put my kids in camp, and we’re traveling with daddy, then I’ve just wasted a bunch of money,” she explains. “That keeps our life exciting and unpredictable, but it also makes me a little crazy because I am a planner, and an A-type personality. I do like to know what everybody is doing. If you don’t know what your kids are doing, then you can’t carve out that much needed time for yourself, whether it’s just to go to the spa or to figure out what my next project is.”
Long has just returned from a two-week visit to San Antonio, while her youngest was on an extended spring break (“I know I only have a couple of more years to hop him on my hip and dodge out of town,”), and that day, the two had just come from LA’s Griffith Park for an Easter egg hunt. She tries to spend as much individual time with her boys, making sure she’s connecting with them during these fleeting years.
“You can’t have kids with such a huge age difference and not give them their own personal time,” she says. “This week is really my older son’s week, whereas last week, it was Sea World and basketball game with daddy, and botanical gardens. This week is going to be “Okay Massai, you have to go the dentist, you have to go to baseball practice. We’ve got to start making our plan for finals coming up in another month.”
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Entertainment mogul Will Packer, an executive producer of Uncle Buck, says he has always been a fan, but now that he’s worked with Long, he especially admires her ability to maintain equilibrium in her world. “There’s a sense of balance in Nia’s life as a mom, and as a working mom. She’s somebody who definitely knows how to balance her personal needs with those of her family,” Packer remarks.
Long says shooting Uncle Buck, the TV remake of John Hughes’ classic film, allows her to be home at a decent hour, which is especially important to her since she is the primary parent during the season. “We both make huge sacrifices so that our children can have some of what they want, and everything that they need,” says Long.
Work wise, Long admittedly needed time to adjust to another genre: both Uncle Buck and Keanu are comedies, and the actress admits it took her a few episodes to “find her funny” against “comedic genius” Mike Epps.
“Everybody has their own funny,” she clarifies, “and comedy has to feel really natural and organic. I wanted Alexis, my character on Uncle Buck, to be funny and vulnerable, but smart and grounded in the way that we want to see ourselves on camera.”
“I think she’s going to surprise people,” says Packer regarding Long’s comedic chops. “If you don’t know her as a comedic actress, she’s going to surprise folks.”
However, the actress is looking towards the future, as well, which she says will include work completely foreign to her. “You know, I’d love to do a yummy period piece where I could just take this weave out of my hair and just be natural and black. I would love to just strip down and be my most vulnerable self in a feature. I believe it’s all coming.”
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JADA’S GANGSTA & A COMPTON ROBBERY
When asked about this year’s Oscars boycott, led by actress Jada Pinkett-Smith, Long at first pushed the answer off, saying she’s been answering some form of that same question for years, even when John Singleton was nominated for an Oscar for Boyz n the Hood back in 1992.
“One of the questions [I was asked then was], ‘How do you feel about this first time African American director being nominated for an Oscar?’ I remember being so young going, in my mind, ‘I don’t even understand that question.’ Like, ‘It’s a great movie.’
“A great product deserves acknowledgement and celebration,” she says. “I didn’t see all the films this year, but I thought Straight Outta Compton was robbed. That film was flawless. To not see that happen was very odd for me, especially coming from the family of Boyz n the Hood. Straight Outta Compton, in many ways, enlightened this newer generation the same way that Boyz did.”
Hardly short of opinions, Long acknowledges Pinkett-Smith for her outspoken behavior during this past awards season.
“I’ve known Jada since we were young women. She got the whole country talking about something [necessary] and it’s a great thing,” Long says. “She’s one of the soldiers. I was proud of her. I was proud that she even had the nerve to say anything. Nobody else did, until she did.”
“A lot of people thought that she was upset because Will didn’t get nominated, but I think it was her way of expressing her disappointment because nobody black was nominated.
“People think that just because your name is Denzel Washington or Will Smith or Kevin Hart, that automatically things are easy,” she continues. “These people have spent years building. No matter what level you’re on in this industry, you’re expected to be excellent. Being excellent—when the material isn’t—can be challenging.”
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PEACEFUL JOURNEYS
It’s a few days after rapper Malik “Phife Dawg” Taylor has passed away, and Long says she is feeling a little down. Coming of age in the golden era
of hip-hop, she has the privilege of being named dropped by Phife in the
1993 song, “Steve Biko (Stir It Up)” on A Tribe Called Quest’s third album, Midnight Marauders.
“Somebody called me and said, ‘You know you’re in that Tribe song.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ The line is, ‘Trini-born black like Nia Long’s grandmother.’ I was like, ‘This is the hottest song in the club. What?’”
Long says Phife’s untimely death also brought back memories of her close friend, rapper and actor Dwight “Heavy D” Myers, who suddenly passed in 2011.
“Heavy was really my brother because he would just tell me the raw truth all the time. We would fight like brother and sister,” says Long softly. “I got a little depressed the last couple days because I started thinking about Hev, then Phife, and then me and Ime were listening to A Tribe Called Quest on the way to the game.”
Long says that she was actually in the same hospital giving birth to her youngest, Kez, as Heavy was leaving the earthly plane. It still haunts her to this day.
“The day that Heavy passed away, I texted him. I said, ‘We’re headed to the hospital, your nephew’s about to be here.’ Then I was like, ‘I love you,'” recalls Long. “He wrote back, ‘Love you too.’ The next thing I knew, I read that he had passed away, only to find out that we were in the same hospital. As I was giving birth, he was crossing over. I just … it just breaks my heart because when they brought him to the hospital, I don’t think he had passed away yet. I’m like, ‘Why didn’t I know?’ Why couldn’t I have gotten in a wheel chair and gone downstairs and just been there with him?”
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WHAT SHE’S LEARNED (AND TAUGHT US)
These days, Long is in a good space. She has eked out a workable worldview and has forged ahead in the fire of Hollywood.
“I have a very Zen persona right now,” she says. “I do meditations and my affirmations because there are so many things in my world that I cannot control, and learning to be okay with that is where I think you find true peace.
“I think finally I’m learning what it means to be a wife, a mother, an actress, and then just being Nia, which is separate from all of that, but the core part of all of it, as well. Being able to create balance, and even just knowing that, is super important. And just loving who I am, even when I don’t feel that I’m being so lovable. Just accepting myself with all of my greatness and all of my flaws is half the battle for anybody at any age.”
For Korin Huggins, Head of TV for Will Packer Productions, and co-executive producer of Uncle Buck, Long was the inspiration for her moving to
Hollywood and pursuing a career in television.
“I think in Hollywood, [someone like Nia is] hard to find,” says Huggins. “She’s embraced every single stage of her life and will talk about the fact that she’s more womanly. And I think all of her characters represent that. She has no qualms with that. There are actresses who are of that ‘mother age’ and don’t embrace it. Nia embraces wherever she is in her life. I’ve worked with a lot of actresses, and you don’t find that sort of confidence.”
Nia Long confirms her happiness and rarefied Zen. “Yeah. I’m in a good place,” she says. “Life is sweet.”
Eddie Murphy‘s ninth child, a baby girl, was born May 3rd in Los Angeles.
