Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s One Battle After Another<\/a> last year, and has bracketed the frivolity of Scary Movie and the 2017 smash Girls Trip with turns in smart, downbeat indies like 2018\u2019s Support the Girls, for which she became the first Black woman to win the Best Actress prize at the New York Film Critics Circle.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve had heartbreak and disappointments, and joy and peace and laughter,\u201d she says. \u201cMy life has always informed my work rather than the other way around. So it\u2019s kind of like I\u2019m just over here surviving the human experience and trying to make my lemonade.\u201d She giggles. \u201cSome days it\u2019s sweeter than others, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Thomas Anderson and I always had that conversation about what happened to her. I think she\u2019s dead. Paul thinks she\u2019s in jail … Neither trajectory is amazing<\/p>\n
We\u2019re here today to talk about The Five Star Weekend, a frothy new limited series on Sky and Now about a group of disparate women linked by their individual friendships with Jennifer Garner\u2019s Hollis. Several months after the death of her husband, Hollis gathers the women together for a weekend of fun and emotional catharsis. Chlo\u00eb Sevigny\u2019s Tatum is awaiting medical results. D\u2019Arcy Carden\u2019s Brooke has a dodgy husband. Gemma Chan\u2019s mysterious Gigi has a devastating secret. Hall\u2019s Dru-Ann is a sports agent in the middle of a PR nightmare \u2013 she publicly shamed her star client Posey after she announced a mental health break, and is weathering the consequences.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked that she was outspoken in a very normally male-dominated world,\u201d Hall says. \u201cAnd that her mouth gets her into trouble. That\u2019s always interesting to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an arrogance to Dru-Ann, too, Hall suggests. \u201cShe never examined the way that she is,\u201d she says. \u201cShe looks at Posey and thinks, \u2018You have an opportunity that I didn\u2019t have, and I don\u2019t want you to squander it.\u2019 But she forgets that just because she\u2019s older, it doesn\u2019t mean she knows better.\u201d<\/p>\n
I tell Hall that Dru-Ann felt very real, in how we\u2019re typically instructed to be forthright and confident, but not too much, lest we be judged. It\u2019s like one long internal battle. But Hall seems a little unconvinced. \u201cMaybe,\u201d she says. \u201cEveryone\u2019s internal compass is different, isn\u2019t it? For some people it may be a battle. For others it may just be.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a point early on in the show in which Dru-Ann writes a NotesApp apology for how she\u2019s treated Posey, which she screenshots and publishes to her Instagram. It doesn\u2019t go well. NotesApp apologies are practically a celebrity rite of passage at this point, I tell Hall. But she\u2019s always been entirely scandal-free, I notice. There are no dubious quotes out there. No real public dating history, either. Has it been intentional to remain vaguely enigmatic as a movie star?<\/p>\n
\u201cI can honestly say I\u2019ve never thought about it,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe earlier in my career I would have been more free with any thoughts I felt compelled to express. But probably no one would have wanted to hear them anyway\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Hall,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/03_06_TheFiveStarWeekend_S01.jpeg\")
Hall, alongside D\u2019Arcy Carden, Gemma Chan, Chlo\u00eb Sevigny and Jennifer Garner in \u2018The Five Star Weekend\u2019 (Peacock)<\/p>\n
What\u2019s interesting about Hall, though, is that she originally studied to be a journalist, which may explain why she\u2019s so good at giving away so little to people like me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did learn what \u2018off-the-record\u2019 meant,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI mean, that\u2019s probably helped.\u201d It\u2019s meant she\u2019s always known to say \u201coff-the-record!\u201d in interviews before she starts saying anything she \u201cwouldn\u2019t want the world to know\u201d. \u201cBecause you can\u2019t say it after, then it\u2019s like\u2026 too late! And I know that all thanks to my time at NYU.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hall studied journalism with a plan to produce long-form news reports for television, only for her father to die suddenly from a stroke during her very first semester. A friend suggested she could make extra money by appearing in commercials, which landed her an agent. \u201cIt was never something planned, but many of our biggest pivots in life aren\u2019t,\u201d she says. \u201cIn the middle of all of this grief, I finished my journalism programme, then decided to really study acting. So it was like life happened, I started this and loved it, and now years later I\u2019m on the phone to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Work was more or less instant. She provided valuable support in Black Y2K touchstones like The Best Man (1999) and Love & Basketball (2000), then was cast in Scary Movie (2000). She reprised the role of the narcissistic, probably psychologically unwell Brenda Meeks in four of its five sequels (despite being killed in two of them), and most recently in June\u2019s Scary Movie 6. Despite their success, the movies had notoriously chaotic productions \u2013 Marlon and Shawn Wayans, who created the franchise with their father, the filmmaker Keenan Ivory Wayans, were fired after 2001\u2019s Scary Movie 2 by producer Harvey Weinstein, and finally took back ownership of the series with 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cScary Movie was only my third movie, so there were many things I didn\u2019t know back then,\u201d Hall says now. \u201cAt the time I didn\u2019t have any access to the behind-the-scenes stuff they were dealing with. I\u2019m just very happy that they were able to reclaim what was theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Hall,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/shutterstock_editorial_15072407mt.jpeg\")
Hall, alongside Shannon Elizabeth and Anna Faris, in the original \u2018Scary Movie\u2019 (Shutterstock)<\/p>\n
I\u2019m curious how she\u2019s dealt with some of the spicier gags in those movies, particularly when they involve celebrities that Hall ended up working with. Scary Movie saw her parody Jada Pinkett Smith\u2019s vaguely overblown public murder in Scream 2, and she went on to work with Pinkett Smith in Girls Trip. A memorable gag in Scary Movie 2 in which Brenda compares a dusty skeleton to the famously trim Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart came just as Hall herself joined the actual cast of Ally McBeal for its final season. Did it ever get, well, awkward?<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were both pretty wonderful, to be honest with you,\u201d she says. \u201cCalista was lovely. Jada\u2019s a real class act. I hope that everyone knows that the intention is never to be malicious with that kind of joke. And also it\u2019s Brenda, you know? Something\u2019s wrong with Brenda.\u201d She cackles. \u201cLike I\u2019m not the person making those comments, it\u2019s this person with a very specific way of looking at the world. Her lens is only hers, which is what I love about her.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says her gradual shift to drama over the years was never intentional. \u201cThere\u2019s just been a lot of luck, some divine timing, some God in there,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I guess that idea of always wanting to do something different each time.\u201d One Battle came to her directly through Paul Thomas Anderson, her next-door neighbour of years, who asked her one day if she\u2019d play Deandra for him \u2013 Hall has described her as the Obi-Wan Kenobi figure of the film, a careful observer within a group of far-left revolutionaries. I tell Hall that I saw Deandra as the film\u2019s heart, and its biggest tragedy. She was probably the most serious and devoted of her regime, and paid the price for it. The last time we see her she is in tears, handcuffed by military troops.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul and I always had that conversation about what happened to her,\u201d she says. \u201cI think she\u2019s dead. Paul thinks she\u2019s in jail. But I think they killed her because she wasn\u2019t important to them anymore. She was the last one standing.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s awfully bleak, I suggest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, neither trajectory is amazing,\u201d Hall laughs. She says she loved Deandra. \u201cShe had a quietness to her soul, but a strength. She was wonderful to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Hall](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/shutterstock_editorial_15427470q.jpeg\")
Hall as a doomed revolutionary in Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u2018One Battle After Another\u2019 (Shutterstock)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s funny, I tell her, that so many outlets \u2013 from The Hollywood Reporter to Vulture \u2013 described One Battle After Another as a real career breakthrough for her. She\u2019s had a few over the years. The New York Times previously described the one-two punch of Girls Trip and Support the Girls as \u201csomething akin to breakout stardom\u201d in 2019. And, years before that, she\u2019d had the Scary Movies and a raft of hits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just assume that different audiences discover me at different times,\u201d she says. \u201cSome careers start quick, but I\u2019ve had a slow and steady run. I don\u2019t even know if \u2018slow\u2019 is right, honestly. More just steady. I mean, I\u2019ve definitely never been an overnight sensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does it ever bother her?<\/p>\n
\u201cNo! I take it as a very wonderful compliment. Not being synonymous with a particular project is one of the great joys of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s exactly how she likes it, I suppose. Sometimes hilarious. Sometimes tragic. Always making lemonade.<\/p>\n
\u2018The Five Star Weekend\u2019 is available on Sky Atlantic and Now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-567309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}