THE MEN OF EMPIRE SIZZLE ON THE JUNE ISSUE OF ESSENCE MAGAZINE. SEVERAL HOT COVERS TO CHOSE FROM.
JUSSIE SMOLLET 32
BYSHERE YAZZ GRAY 21
TRAI BYERS 33
THE HANDSOME MEN OF EMPIRE COVER ESSENCE MAGAZINE AND ALL OF THEM DESERVE THEIR OWN COVER. WHICH ONE WILL YOU PICK. ALL I KNOW IS THAT WHITE IS A BEAUTIFUL COLOR ON MEN.
BECAUSE MOTHER'S DAY WEEKEND IS COMING UP I PLAN ON DOING SOMETHING THAT I LOVE TO DO. TAKING A SPA BATH WITH CANDLES AND DIMMING THE LIGHTS.
ZOE KRAVITZ DAUGHTER OF LISA BONET AND LENNY KRAVITZ MODELS POWERFUL PICTURES IN FLAUNT MAGAZINE. SHE IS A BEAUTIFUL COMBINATION OF BOTH PARENTS.
On her upcoming projects:
“I’m doing sh*t that I love,” Zoë confesses. “I just wrapped a film mid-January. It went straight to Sundance… Ever since then it’s been nonstop. Press for Insurgent. I have a film called Good Kill coming out with Ethan Hawke. Mad Max press is gearing up. Dope is also at Sundance. That’s coming out in June.”
On shooting sci-fi films:
It’s so much bigger than you… stunts, and building sets, and special effects… There’s so much more than just you. You feel like part of a machine. Like a working part of a machine. I’m [used to] the other side, independent films.
On her independent projects:
I just did a film with Emile Hirsch called, Vincent and Roxy [that] I’m super excited about. It was me, him, and the director—and the [Director of Photography]. [Doing it was like,] “we’re going to figure out how the scene’s going to go; we’re going to figure out how to shoot it; we’re going to figure out how the dialogue is going to change. We [were] figuring it all out, and you know every process, or every step of the way of the process of how to get to the end result. And this, and big films like [Mad Max]…you don’t make those choices…
On social media:
“We’re going to find out, at one point, how it’s affected human beings. We’re part of an experiment.” Zoë confirms. "The information is right there. But it’s all about who you are. You can either use the internet and look at gossip blogs and porn all day, which is fine sometimes. Or you can use it to do exactly what we’re talking about: to connect with people, and find information. It’s all there, so it all comes down to your level of discipline, and interests and wonder."
CHECK OUT THE FULL INTERVIEW IN FLAUNT MAGAZINE
The numbers tell their own story: she’s the first black African actress to win an Oscar, the first black Lancôme ambassador. During the shoot, a Lancôme rep admires the particular shade of red nail varnish that has been chosen for Nyong’o to wear – a colour that doesn’t work as well next to white skin. She is transforming the picture of beauty. As Nyong’o says, it’s about time. ‘It’s 2015, man. We could all use some diversity.’ That’s why she wants to do Americanah – not just because the story is about the under-explored experience of Africans in America (as opposed to African-Americans), but also in order to show a Western audience that Africa is a continent, not a concept, containing a limitless mix of peoples and languages. Is it frustrating, how people over-simplify? ‘Yes,’ she says, typically direct. ‘It can get tedious to have to explain that I speak English because Kenyans speak English.’
Her family are all in Kenya, it’s still home, even though she hasn’t been back since 2013, before the madness set in. She misses it, and them, keenly, but they keep relentlessly in touch through instant messaging. At any moment she’ll know that her mother is stuck in traffic or which skirt her sister is thinking of buying. It’s not perfect, but it’s all part of the adjustment. Her life is now an itinerant one, continent-straddling, managed. She sees her old friends – from Hampshire College and Yale – on the rare occasions she makes it back to New York and to her apartment in Brooklyn. To get time to herself, she recently had to go away – she won’t tell me where – to a place where no one knew her and she could be 'one of the number', entirely anonymous. Amid all of this, does she have time for romance? She smiles, and says simply: ‘I plead the fifth.’ Nyong’o speaks more candidly than any actress I’ve met, but there are limits.
CHECK OUT THE FULL INTERVIEW IN THE MAY ISSUE OF HARPER'S BAZAAR.
BLUE IVY AND COUSIN JULEZ
ROBYN GIVENS AND SON BILLY
BRANDY AND DAUGHTER SYRAI
KIMORA SIMMONS AND HER NEWBORN SON WOLFE
SINGER SADE AND HER DAUGHTER ILLA
ILLA HER MOTHER IS INTERNATIONAL SINGER SADE
