Natasha Kundi Venus and Serena Williams are a force in the tennis world. They are champions in their own right and are two women in sports who aspiring athletes look up too. But no one really knows the story behind their success. What they had to go through. But that is about to change as a biopic about their father (and coach) titled King Richard will be coming to theatres on the 19th November 2021.
Will Smith, who plays Richard Williams reminisces about the famous interview where he rebuked a journalist that made him want to take on this role. He says, “I fell in love with Richard Williams 20-something years ago. When the opportunity to be a part of this came up, that was the first thing that I remembered. I knew I wanted to show a father protecting a daughter like that to the world.”
Seeing her father’s story on screen, Serena Williams adds, “Yeah, there’s no other word better to describe it as surreal, you know, just to see these incredible actresses, everyone behind it just putting it all together and about our dad’s journey because of myself and my sister, it really is like ‘wow, really? And to have Will play the role of my father and the way he just embodied Richard Williams took the film to a whole new level.”
Wanting to show Richard Williams’ story, producers Tim and Trevor White says, “I had played junior tennis and knew the Richard Williams story a little bit and it was really a story that stick with me and I think around 2013/2014, Trevor and I began talking about this being a potential idea for a movie really for Richard and we both are incredibly inspired by the families and the relentless pursuit of this dream and we started to meet with writers and we probably met with 20/25 writers and I think we found out that there were a thousand different ways to tell this story and it wasn’t until we met Zach, we really zeroed in about what exactly this was. That script really started the process of this film becoming real.”
With early reviews and critics praising the storytelling and Smith’s acting, King Richard is releasing in UK cinemas from 19th November 2021.
