LOS ANGELES _ Regina King arrived backstage at the Emmys press room with Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" album playing in her head as the soundtrack to her victory.
"I'm feeling kind of blue," she said. "In such a good way in my chartreuse."
In fact, that show-stopping chartreuse gown was blemished with an almost imperceptible red stain, the result of her lipstick dropping onto her lap just before the nominees in her category were announced. (King won the Emmy for lead actress in a limited series or movie for her work in "Seven Seconds.")
"I was going in my purse to get my phone to Google something," she said. "Not telling you what I was Googling _ and my lipstick popped out my purse and landed in my lap like the universe was [saying], 'Get off your damn phone.'"
Her agent, Dar Rollins, suggested that she bring her purse up to cover the spot if she were to win. "I was like, 'I'm not going to win.' And he was just saying to me, 'I told you, I told you.' I'm still... my heart is giggling still right now."
King was asked whether, in her experience as both an actress and a budding director, she felt we've reached a turning point in diversity. Her answer skirted the question.
"I'm going to be 100 percent honest... I do feel a lot of times that we're so divided as a country ... things aren't always in black and white, and I am guilty of that a lot of times as well," she said. "I think that probably played a big part in my assumption that the chances of me winning were so small. Also looking at the numbers of different people in the category, the numbers do definitely weigh larger on the white population.
"This is the Television Academy, an academy of my peers," she continued. "And my peers don't just have the same skin color as me and they're not just only interested in the things that represent what they look like. They're interested in art and storytelling. and they're interested in seeing things from different perspectives."
