Regina King would have liked John Singleton's opinion on One Night In Miami

Regina King has lamented that her mentor John Singleton did not live to see her directorial debut, One Night In Miami.

Chatting to Entertainment Weekly, King, who starred in Singleton's Boyz N the Hood, Poetic Justice, and Higher Learning, shared that the filmmaker supported her as she stepped behind the camera to commence work on her own movie, which is now up for multiple prizes at this year's Academy Awards.

"I get emotional sometimes because I remember having conversations with John (Singleton) while I was prepping for this, when we were in the very beginning stages," she said.

Recalling: "He was just so excited about it," King noted: "But I feel like I was able to let him know before he transitioned that he had so much to do with me directing."

Singleton died at age 51, following a stroke, in 2019.

Musing on what the late director might have thought about One Night In Miami, which imagines a meeting between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke in 1964, King reflected: "I can at least know that was conveyed and we got the time over a few occasions to talk about that."

Contemplating: "But I would have liked to hear what he would have said," she went on: "because the thing about John and I, I think he would have liked the film, but he would've definitely told me, 'Next time you may want to think about...' He would have given me that just because our relationship spanned over, s***, damn near 30 years."