A hit Bob Marley movie, Sundance, Oscars... How does a big-time director challenge himself?

04.04.2024 - 17:35 / polygon.com / Mark Wahlberg / Will Smith / Serena Williams

We live in a world in which a Bob Marley biopic has grossed nearly as much as Aquaman 2, completely outpaced Madame Web, and currently stands as the third-highest-grossing movie of 2024. Bob Marley: One Love, which stars Kingsley Ben-Adir (Peaky Blinders, Secret Invasion)as the reggaetitan, and Lashana Lynch (No Time to Die, The Woman King) as his wife and confidante, Rita, is pure grounded drama — and another major win for director Reinaldo Marcus Green.

Green has made a career out of telling the tales of extraordinary but mortal people in ways that go down easy. He loves drama, truth, and character exploration, but he still wants his popcorn. Green’s debut film, Monsters and Men, was a raw, indirect examination of the killing of Eric Garner that played to raves out of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. His follow-up, Joe Bell, teamed him with Mark Wahlberg for the true story of a father walking across America to tell his son’s story. King Richard was his major breakthrough, scoring a Best Picture nomination and an Oscar win for star Will Smith, who starred as Richard Williams, the father and coach of famed tennis players Venus and Serena Williams.

One Love puts Green back in biographical territory, but given the challenges of telling this story, it doesn’t feel like he’s typecasting himself. With Bob Marley: One Love now out on Blu-ray and digital, Polygon sat down with Green to talk about what it means to be the kind of director who has built enough cred that studios trust him, but potentially box him in by his reputation. That dynamic has turned his career into a tricky balancing act where micro-decisions can matter a lot.

Polygon: You walked into One Love carrying the cred of an Oscar-winning film, and now the movie is a big hit. You are a reigning king of dramatization. Is that where you expected to be? Is that where you want to be?

Reinaldo Marcus Green: I think I’m right where I need to be. As a kid, I played baseball, so all I thought about [making movies] was, Maybe one day I’ll make the major leagues. Then you make the major leagues, and then you’re like, Wait, I don’t want to just be here; I want to say something, or I want to make it to the hall of fame. There came a point early in my career where I made it to the major leagues, when I made my first film [Monsters and Men]. So how do you stay in the major leagues, this place I dreamed about as a kid? I guess it’s finding a voice and who you want to be and what you want to say, then leaning into that. If I hit 30 home runs this year, I want to hit 40 home runs next year, then 50. You have to know your limit, your lane, your strengths.

My strengths were at least telling stories that mean something to me, or that matter. I didn’t have to