Pulitzer winner Suzan-Lori Parks speaks to EW about how she approached telling the stories of two music icons.
Aretha FranklinandBillie Holidaynow have more in common than their shared threads as groundbreaking Black music artists.
They’ve both been brought to the screen by Pulitzer Prize winnerSuzan-Lori Parks.
Andra Day as Billie Holiday, left, and Cynthia Erivo as Aretha Franklin.Takashi Seida/Paramount Pictures; National Geographic/Richard DuCree
Parks tells EW that the Holiday project came first in 2017, followed by Franklin in 2019.
She had the best back-up singers any woman could want in her sisters.
“I was in the company of saints with those two women,” she affirms.
“How we turn our difficulties into beautiful things like Aretha did, alchemizing her pain into sonic gold.
I take my sisterhood very seriously.”
“The word, it’s a singular ability, it’s something that endures,” she muses.
Genius: Arethapremieres Sunday, March 21, at 9 p.m.
ET on National Geographic.
Watch the video above for more.
