Regina Hall - Black Women, Facts and Life

Regina Hall was born on December 12, 1970, in Washington D.C., USA, to middle class parents. Her father worked as a contractor and electrician while her mother was a teacher. Regina grew up in an African-American household. Writing was her childhood love and she wanted to become a writer.

Regina was an emotional child, and got easily affected by negative developments in outside world. To overcome this, she started writing comedy, and there was also a time when she went into depression. She started going to the church during high school and loved meditating. For some time, she wanted to be a nun and lead a peaceful life in service of others.

She did not plan to take-up acting as a full-time career. After completing High School, she started pursuing journalism and earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature from Fordham University, Bronx. She later got enrolled for a Master’s program in Journalism at the New York University.

Around this time, her father passed away of a heart attack. This was a massive blow for Regina, and she focused hard on her career to cope up with the tragedy. Acting provided her the opportunity to fully grow into some other person, so she started trying hard for a break in films and TV, and as luck would have it, she struck gold with it.

She had played a very small role in the 1992 soap opera ‘Loving,’ just for fun. Her role was very small and could not be noticed by anyone. She kept her acting plans on hold and concentrated on her career in journalism.

While she was pursuing her master’s degree in journalism, she auditioned and got selected for a TV commercial in 1997. Thereafter, she appeared in a small role in the comedy film ‘The Best Man.’ Her role was very small, but it was noticed by many filmmakers. Around this time, more and more filmmakers were casting African-American actors in pivotal roles to show solidarity with the anti-racism movement in Hollywood.

In the same year, she also appeared in one episode of the popular police procedural drama ‘New York Undercover,’ which gave her some exposure of the industry.

The biggest breakthrough role of her career came in 2000, in the spoof comedy film ‘Scary Movie.’ Although she was around 30 years of age, she played a high school girl ‘Brenda Meeks’ in the film. Her role received applauds and her comic timing was termed ‘brilliant’ by the industry professionals.

Mainstream Hollywood had accepted her and some better roles followed. Thereafter, she appeared as ‘Coretta Lipp’ in the prime time drama ‘Ally McBeal.’ It was supposed to be just a recurring role for a few episodes, but her growing fan following forced the producers to make her a series regular by the fifth season of the show.

In 2002, she appeared in a dramatic role in the film ‘Paid in Full.’ By now, her popularity had grown considerably and directors began to consider her for leading parts. In the 2003 comedy film ‘Malibu’s Most Wanted,’ she appeared as one of the leading characters. It was followed by several lead roles in films, such as ‘King’s Ransom’ and ‘The Honeymooners.’

In the meantime, she kept appearing in the role of ‘Brenda Meeks’ in the future instalments of ‘Scary Movie.’ The last instalment of the franchise came in 2006.

In the 2008 ‘Superhero Movie,’ a comedy spoof on the growing trend of superhero films in Hollywood, she played one of the X Men, ‘Mrs. Xavier.’

Thereafter, she appeared in a dramatic role in ‘Law Abiding Citizen.’ It was a hard hitting drama revolving around the struggle of man against the system. The film starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler in the lead roles was a big success.

She also appeared in ‘Law & Order: LA’ and played a solid role of District Attorney ‘Evelyn Price.’

Around this time, Regina announced that she was working as a writer for ‘ABILITY’ magazine.

In 2012, she played the role of ‘Candace’ in the comedy film ‘Think Like a Man’ and she went on reprising her character in the two instalments of the series, ‘The Best Man Holiday’ and ‘Think Like a Man Too.’ These moderately successful films were based on Steve Harvey’s popular novel ‘Act like a Lady, Think like a Man.’

In 2014, she teamed up with the popular comedy actor Kevin Hart for the film ‘About Last Night.’ The film was criticized for not being up to the mark, but Hart and Regina’s pairing was appreciated, and called the ‘only saving grace of the film.’

Hall then appeared in films, such as ‘Vacation,’ ‘Girls Trip’ and ‘Naked.’ She also kept her writing career moving with different publications.

Regina Hall keeps her private life under the wraps. She is rumoured to be bisexual, and her past lovers include rapper Common, actor Sanaa Lathan, and actor Damon Wayans.

In 2004, after her mother was diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disease scleroderma, she started volunteering for several NGOs that spread awareness towards the disease.

She has a highly sensitive nature and after a bad breakup in 2011, she wanted to give everything up and become a nun.