“It hurts me because that’s my friend and I revere her as an artist and a collaborator. On the other hand, King’s snub in the directing category “hurts,” he says. So to be welcomed into the fraternity of storytellers is very meaningful.” It’s only been the last five or six years.

“The Academy Awards is really about a tradition of honor and excellence, and so to be mentioned in the same breath as the other four nominees as well as all of the nominees that have ever been makes you part of a tradition of storytelling and the arts,” he says. So the fact that you’ve been so supportive means more to me than I can say.”Īlthough he is touched by the Academy recognition, Odom says he has mixed feelings about his Oscar nominations. I hoped that intention would cover the gap in whatever my shortcomings were. And so what I had to focus on was pure intention: I wanted Nicole and her family to see that my only desire was to get it right, to honor Mr. “I assumed that I would fall short for some people, maybe even myself, because I knew that there would be places in this movie where I didn’t measure up, where I wasn’t Sam Cooke enough for some people. “Nicole, thank you so much for the vote of confidence,” Odom says. It was so important to see my grandfather portrayed not just for the singer-songwriter that he was but for his tenacity as a businessman, for the passion that he had and for the fun, affable man he was.” I mean, that’s something we’ve been anxious to see someone do for years. “Everyone was excited to see how Sam would be portrayed on film. “He knocked it out of the park,” Cooke-Johnson says during a conference call with Odom and The Times. And Odom’s performance - which earned him a supporting actor Oscar nomination to go with his original song nod for the film’s end-credits track, “Speak Now” - more crucially won the approval of Cooke’s family. It marked the first time Cooke’s granddaughter and widow had ever seen the soul legend portrayed onscreen. The film, written by Kemp Powers, who also co-directed Pixar’s animated Oscar contender “Soul,” imagines a conversation among Sam Cooke ( Leslie Odom Jr.), Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Muhammad Ali ( Eli Goree) and Jim Brown ( Aldis Hodge). Nicole Cooke-Johnson and her grandmother, Barbara Cooke, cried tears of joy the first time they saw Regina King’s “One Night in Miami …” In fact, they were so moved they watched it twice.

Sam cooke documentary