Kara Young is not feeling scared, exactly — in fact, she doesn’t know the words for this moment at all. “I have all the feelings, but I don’t know how to even describe them,” she says, mere hours out from going back on stage for a performance of her current Broadway play, Proof. “This is something that’s completely new for me — it’s a new world for me.”
She’s not, of course, referring to her current Broadway run: That’s old hat at this point for the New York native, who has won two consecutive Tony Awards — she’s the only Black actress in history to have done so — and been nominated for four years running. But at the same time as she’s starring in Proof — where she may well keep those Tony streak up, based on the reviews — she’s also hitting a milestone: Leading her first studio movie, Is God Is, about to be released in theaters across North America on May 15.
The progression feels natural for Young, who’s been making her name with critically acclaimed stage turns over the past decade, imbuing a wide range of characters with fierce conviction and dry wit. “She’s a wonderful scene partner — passionate, deeply interrogative and endlessly curious,” says Ayo Edebiri, Young’s Proof co-star. “She feels so very deeply and fully; it’s pretty astounding to be in contact with. When she brings that into her work, it never feels untethered or ostentatious.”
Young came into Proof as a tried-and-true pro: The production needed to find a replacement for Samira Wiley, who withdrew for health reasons, right before previews started. One actor fit the bill.
“I had five days in the [rehearsal] room and then I went straight to tech, so I didn’t have much time to prepare,” Young says. “When you do something like this — I call it quick and dirty — you have to trust your instincts. It is a lesson in that you have to trust your instrument and know that if it’s wrong, you can adjust.” She says it was an easy yes, but also one that reflects her current philosophy as her profile has risen over the last few years: “Either you wait to get something on television or film, or you work and work on your instrument and keep your sword sharpened.”
All of which is to say, Young’s rapid rise as one of the Great White Way’s most decorated stars has not dramatically changed things in terms of offers from Hollywood. “People say, like, ‘Oh my God, all these things have happened,’ but I feel like I’m still hustling,” Young says. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but people are always under the assumption that the thing has gotten perhaps easier. But I haven’t really seen a change.”
She’s had smaller roles in Boots Riley projects I’m a Virgo and the forthcoming I Love Boosters, and recurred in hit series like The Punisher and The Staircase. Is God Is feels different, though — and she knows it. Based on her volcanic performance in the film, that “change” people keep telling her about might start to feel real, too — her work is about to be exposed to far more people than can fill a Broadway theater for a few months.
“It is my honor to platform Kara, who many of us in the theater already know is a rare gift, a once-in a lifetime talent,” says writer-director Aleshea Harris. “I hope the beauty of her performance opens even more doors for her both onstage and onscreen. No one is more deserving.”
Making her directorial and screenwriting debut, Harris adapted Is God Is from her own Pulitzer Prize-finalist play about twin sisters on a bloody revenge quest (“Step aside, Quentin Tarantino and Martin McDonagh,” The New York Times’ review of the original 2018 Soho Rep production began). Young knew Harris from the theater world, but more importantly, she admired her work deeply. “It blew my mind,” Young says of the 2018 Is God Is production. “And the power of seeing it — I mean, this is a cult play. People are like, ‘That’s my favorite play ever.’”
Young was asked to audition for the movie and secured the part. “She doesn’t waste the opportunity to insist that this marginalized young woman is a person of great depth who should and must be perceived with empathy,” Harris says of how Young approached the role.
Is God Is opens with sisters Racine (Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson) being summoned to meet Ruby (Vivica A. Fox), the mother they’d assumed was dead or worse. Like her daughters, Ruby is severely disfigured by burn scars — and she reveals to them that their injuries came from childhood at the hands of their father and her ex-husband (Sterling K. Brown). Ruby’s mission for them is simple: Find him and kill him. Racine, the more outspoken and impulsive of the pair, pushes them to follow through on the quest.
The film’s neatest trick is its balance of emotional intimacy and hyperstylized action. We get to know Racine and Anaia deeply — so deeply that we see their wordless communication, whether brushing their teeth or hiding from danger, typed out on the screen — and feel the intensity of their connection. Young and Johnson worked with a choreographer in prep less for mimicry, and more to find symbiotic “twin energy.” They also have to delve into their family’s ugly past, confront a range of colorful characters — the supporting cast includes hilarious turns from Erika Alexander, Janelle Monáe and more — and, eventually, commit some murders. Well, quite a few. There is blood and stuntwork and weapon-handling aplenty.
“I fully immersed myself in Aleshea’s world,” Young says. “Anything that she wanted said or needed from me, I was always ready, willing and able.” What does she make of Tarantino comparisons that may rear their head again? “I don’t blame them for thinking that way, yet Aleshea Harris is in her own lane,” she says. “It’s quite easy for other people to relate it to that because that is just how we are taught in this world, to make a relation to very popular pop culture references. But I don’t think that it can be in comparison to anything because it’s unlike anything.”
Young’s all-out, sometimes unhinged commitment to the material shows — as does Young’s more profound relationship with the material. “I know that we don’t have this in our canon,” she says. “I’m thinking all the words I could possibly think of: our joys, our resilience, our survival, our wanting to know our histories, our interrogation of our own lives. I mean, there’s just so much. There’s so much, and it’s never one thing with this movie.”
The film feels like a very different kind of release for Amazon MGM Studios compared to their last theatrical play, the blockbuster hit Project Hail Mary. But in its significant, months-long promotional campaign ahead of release, Young finds herself front and center as a first-time movie star. After Proof performances, Young interacts with fans at the stage door, where Is God Is gets brought up often. The trailer, meanwhile, has been viewed more than 13.5 million times on YouTube alone — a massive number for an original story without any marquee screen stars in the lead parts.
Young feels the energy — it’s why she’s feeling a little off balance about it all. “There is a very overwhelming excitement from the people in this film, and I don’t know where the excitement comes from.” She thinks a bit more deeply before settling on where she sees the roots of it: “It’s never been done, and so that is the reason why people want to see it. We keep on producing the same stories, and this is not that…. I know the power of the story and that is where I am centered.”
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