Actress Lela Rochon Fuqua & Director Antoine Fuqua talk about: marriage, parenthood and their busy careers

Jet, March 17, 2003 by Aldore D. Collier

Actress Lela Rochon Fuqua and husband director Antoine Fuqua have one of those Hollywood marriages committed to family first and career second.

Rochon Fuqua, who starred in such films as Waiting to Exhale, Harlem Nights and the television movie Ruby Bridges met Fuqua, who directed last year's phenomenal hit Training Day in 1997 when the two were in Hong Kong working on different projects. She was promoting Knock Off with Jean Claude Van Damme and he was shooting The Replacement Killers.

"It was the night of the handover, when China was getting its independence back from Britain," Rochon Fuqua recalled. "There was a huge celebration and we met at a party in Hong Kong. It was pretty much love at first sight. We went on this really, long, long date all over the island going to parties because over there they sleep by day and party all night. It's pretty unbelievable, but we ended up naming our daughter Asia as corny as that is."

The two married in 1999 but have managed to keep the marriage at the forefront in spite of their busy schedules. "It's hard. The most difficult for me was when he was in Hawaii shooting Tears of the Sun and he was only able to fly back so much while I was on bed rest," she said. "We are very, very clear. You have to be strong and you have to have a lot of trust."

Fuqua agreed. "For me, it's my family and my work." He just finished directing Bruce Willis in Tears and is heading to Great Britain soon to begin work on King Arthur. "I couldn't do this without them. It's too difficult and too painful without them," he admitted. "The work is hard and you have to come home knowing you're going to see the faces of your family. For me, I come home and go through the dailies (reviewing all the film shot that day) and pretty much do that until 2:00 a.m. and then sometimes up and out by 5:00 a.m. Not to see your family is tough. It's a lonely job."

That's why he's committed to taking the family with him while he shoots King Arthur. "I need them," he said.

The couple has 6-month-old Asia Rochon Fuqua and Zachary, Fuqua's 10-year-old son by a previous relationship. Fuqua has custody during the summer and every couple of weeks flies up to the San Francisco bay area where Zack Attack, as he calls him, stays with his mother.

The Fuquas lost a child to miscarriage during Lela's first pregnancy almost two years ago. And she thinks her superhectic work schedule was too demanding during that time.

"This industry isn't very accommodating when you're pregnant as I found out," she observed. "They really don't care. But, after you have the baby, the baby can have his or her own room, trailer. I was working 16, 20 hours a day, which is hard to do when you're pregnant. The schedule was horrible, not accommodating, and I lost the baby. It was the saddest moment of my life. I was five months pregnant, going on six. So, I left the show and I rested and had a healthy pregnancy the next time. I had to stay in the bed for the last four or five months and lie on my side."

And Asia was born very healthy. Rochon Fuqua quickly pointed out that there'll be no Hollywood nannies for her daughter. She takes her almost everywhere she and Fuqua go. On those other occasions, she said her mother assists them.

Now, she's ready to go back to work. It didn't take long for big and small screen offers to begin rolling in. "They were calling me nine weeks after I had her. That was too soon, but I'm ready now." One of her first acting vehicles will be a feature film project that she and Fuqua will produce together called Family Reunion. "It's a heartfelt comedy and we'll produce it together," she said. "We've been having meetings together at the studios and we actually get along really great in that way. As far as creatively, we think alike." When their schedules allow, both agreed that he will direct her.

Last year was especially exciting for the two as Training Day became a box-office bonanza and stars Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke both garnered Academy Award nominations. Washington made history as just the second Black man to be named best actor in the more than 70-year history of the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier won in 1963 for Lilies of the Field.

"It's great. I'm watching my husband turn into a very powerful man and it's really exciting," she proclaimed. "He'll never say but at the Academy Awards I was saddened by the fact that when Denzel thanked him they didn't put the camera on him because the White people simply didn't know who he was. They made sure they knew where the other directors were sitting."

Fuqua shrugged the slight off saying that it's always the work that counts. "I loved the story so much that I didn't care if it made much money or not. I just wanted to do good, strong work."

He said beyond providing for his family, he is committed to change things for Black directors in Hollywood by showing that they can easily make movies that appeal to all audiences and should not be pigeon-holed in "Black" movies. "The idea is to show them that we can make big, global-quality films and they don't have to be about our color," he said. "I think it's a mistake for filmmakers to do that. They'll pigeonhole us and we won't get a chance to spread our wings and show what we can do."