Lemmons was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Dorothy Othello (née Stallworth) and Milton Francis Lemmons.[5] Her father was a biology teacher and her mother was a counselor who later became a psychologist.[6] In a 2021 episode of Finding Your Roots, Lemmons learned that her third-great-grandfather was transported to the United States from Africa in the early-19th century, and that she was a distant relative of actor Kevin Bacon.[5]
Her parents divorced when she was eight years old. Her mother moved the family to Newton, Massachusetts, because her mother wanted to go to Harvard to get her doctorate in education.[6] Her mother remarried when Lemmons was nine.[7] Lemmons attended Commonwealth School, a private high school in Boston. In the summers, she attended the New York University's School of Drama's Circle in the Square Program, which trained children who wanted to be professional actors. Through this program, she gained access to the studios of professional actors such as Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler.[6] Alongside her early interest in movies and acting, Lemmons also harbored an interest in directing.[8]
In 2001 she directed Jackson again in The Caveman's Valentine[9] about a schizophrenic homeless man trying to solve a murder mystery.[10] In 2002 Lemmons conceived and helmed the tribute to Sidney Poitier for the 74th Annual Academy Award show. Shortly afterwards it was announced that Lemmons would direct The Battle of Cloverfield, a supernatural thriller, from her own script for Columbia Pictures.[9]
In 2007, she directed Talk to Me that was centered around the television personality and activist Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene Jr., played by Don Cheadle.[13] For the film, Lemmons received the NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture and was named as Best Director by the African-American Film Critics Association.[14] In a 2007 interview with FF2 Media's Jan Lisa Huttner, Lemmons said Talk to Me "became a film about a time when change was possible and even revolution was possible. We didn't know what was going to happen. It was a very devastating time and a very frightening time, but it was alive. It was alive."[15]
Lemmons's 2019 film Harriet, a biographical film about Harriet Tubman, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Its star, Cynthia Erivo, was nominated for an Academy Award.[citation needed] Lemmons said to the Los Angeles Times about her research for Harriet: "All the elements of a great adventure film are right there in the Harriet Tubman story. It's about a woman who was running a whole lot of her life so action did not have to be imposed. It's inherent. The jeopardy, the movement, the courage, that's all inherent and we wanted to let that play out on screen because we need our female hero stories. This one is about a tiny black woman who did incredible things."[citation needed]
Lemmons explained during an interview that she considered writing to be central to her task as a director: "I've been writing scripts all the time, pretty much every day for fourteen years.... I have to write scripts, because that's the only way I can write parts that will get a lot of people whom I really want to work with involved."[18]
Teaching
Lemmons has worked extensively as a mentor and educator. She has been a board member of Film Independent and has contributed to Film Independent's Filmmaker Labs as a speaker and moderator. She also continues to serve as an advisor to the Sundance Screenwriter and Filmmaker Labs. Guest lecturing and speaking engagements include Yale University, Columbia Film School, MIT, UCLA, USC, The Los Angeles Film School and The University of Pristina Film School in Kosovo. Kasi was Vassar College's 2008 Artist in Residence and in the 2010–2011 academic year, Lemmons was the UCLA Regents’ Lecturer in the School of Theater, Film & Television. She was also the leader/moderator of the AFI curriculum's core class, Narrative Workshop.[12]
She is an Associate Arts Professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.[12]
Opera
Lemmons adapted the novel Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles Blow into an opera libretto for the composer Terence Blanchard. It was premiered by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis on June 15, 2019, and opened the 2021–2022 Metropolitan Opera season, becoming that institution's first opera by an African-American composer.[19]
Lemmons says she is primarily an artist: "I don't wake up every day saying I'm a black woman because it's too given, but I wake up every day feeling like an artist and I feel I'm an artist".[8]
^ abcAlexander, George (2003). Why We Make Movies: Black Filmmakers Talk About the Magic of Cinema (1st ed.). New York: Harlem Moon. pp. 254–255, 271. ISBN9780767911818. OCLC51060176.
^ abc"Mahogany Cafe". www.mahoganycafe.com. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
^ abHurd, Mary G. (2007). Women Directors and their Films. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. pp. 137–138. ISBN9780275985783. OCLC71329831.