Long before Nia Long could picture her name pressed into the concrete of Hollywood Boulevard, she was a little girl on a city bus rolling down that same street — and her mother was at the wheel. She remembers stopping at Dolly Parton’s star, reading aloud the names she knew, then turning to ask her mother about the ones she didn’t. The memory lands differently now, with Parton’s passing Aug. 25 at 80, days before Long sat down with Variety, and the child who once lingered at her star about to receive one of her own.
Long was named to the Hollywood Walk of Fame‘s Class of 2025 in the motion pictures category, and her ceremony is set for September 2026 — a milestone the 55-year-old actress admits she never let herself expect. I just do the work,” she says. I have a vision for what I want for my life and for my children and for myself, and I let God take care of the rest, because I don’t want to be caught up in the hype.” For Long, the star is deeper than most people you may have seen receive the honor in recent years, and she grows visibly emotional recounting what it stirs. t’s every girl’s dream, and everything women work hard for,” she shares.
It is a culmination of generational grit and generational commitment, and I’m so lucky to be the one who, in this whole tribe, gets the star,” she says. She’s relaxed about the whole ordeal — and if you grew up in a Black and/or Brown community of women, you’ve known someone like Nia Long, the kind of person you want to ask a dozen questions, because you know she gives the best advice. Midway through our interview, Long’s phone rings — it’s her son — and she answers without hesitation, excusing herself politely, tending to him before turning back.
The interruption says what the interview keeps circling: everything, for Long, is about family. That refusal to chase the noise has shaped a career spanning four decades. Born in Brooklyn to a first-generation Caribbean American mother from Trinidad, Long and her family landed in South Central Los Angeles via Iowa — a childhood of movement she credits with both her range and her rootedness.
The family stayed in California almost by accident: her mother came to the West to be married, called off the wedding, fell for the palm trees and never looked back. Her breakout role came with John Singleton’s “Boyz n the Hood,” the 1991 coming-of-age drama that made Singleton the first Black filmmaker nominated for Best Director and, at 24, the youngest ever. From there came “Love Jones,” “Friday,” “Soul Food,” “The Best Man” and her personal favorite of hers, “Roxanne, Roxanne.” Most recently, she plays Katherine Jackson in “Michael,” the Antoine Fuqua-directed King of Pop biopic that is now the highest-grossing biopic of all time.
Playing the Jackson matriarch — “who I like to say is the queen mother” — was a privilege that reconnected her to her own history. Long met the late Michael Jackson decades ago, through Singleton, and never forgot it. Her interpretation of Katherine holds the ache just beneath the surface — a performance built on restraint, what I’d call an emotional simmer.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
