Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2000 film “Love and Basketball” was a critically acclaimed success, produced by Spike Lee on a $20 million budget and marketed as a sports drama with appeal beyond a black demographic. Garnering Prince-Bythewood the Independent Spirit award for Best First Screenplay, it was – at the time – one of the largest scale and most high profile projects yet undertaken by a black woman director.
After five years working in TV as a writer on shows like A Different World and South Central, Prince-Bythewood wrote her first film, 2000’s Love & Basketball. Prince-Bythewood said, “With Love & Basketball, I played ball my whole life and did track at UCLA. So, I’m an athlete. And it was very important for me to get it right.” The film was developed at the Sundance Institute’s directing and writing lab.
More recently, Prince-Bythewood directed “The Secret Life of Bees” – produced by Will Smith and starring Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson and Queen Latifah – to a $40 million worldwide gross. It was released by Fox Searchlight in October 2008, and debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival and Urbanworld Film Festival that same year. On the main character’s story, Prince-Bythewood noted that she “connected to Lily’s story. I was adopted. There is a line in the film, ‘there was a hole in me.’ I felt the same way…. Another line I connected with in the film was ‘I’m un-loveable.’ That is how I felt in my 20s. Now I have been able to come out of that. One of the ideas in the film is also how to love yourself.”
In 2014, Prince-Bythewood directed Beyond the Lights, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Prince-Bythewood began work on the film in 2007, before work on 2008’s The Secret Life of Bees was completed, but struggled to find financing after her original production company, Sony, backed out after she insisted on casting Mbatha-Raw. The film premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.
Beyond the Lights was originally called Blackbird, and is based on the Nina Simone song “Blackbird” from the record, Nina Simone with Strings. Prince-Bythewood recalls: “That song really inspired the movie and inspired Noni’s story.”The main character’s story was also loosely inspired by the lives of Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Prince-Bythewood did research with the assistance of a number of singers, including Alicia Keyes.
Prince-Bythewood is married to film director and writer Reggie Rock Bythewood, who she met on the writing staff of A Different World. They have two sons, Cassius and Toussaint, and live in Southern California.