He asked his agent to set up a meeting with the director of the film. Reginald had a huge body of work and knowing that this was an independent project, he knew what his strengths were and he didn’t want to go through the normal process of having his talents overlooked based on an audition. He wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to sit down and really talk the film over with the director. The next words out of his agent’s mouth was, "If you don't audition for this, you're probably not going to get it." Reginald was determined and again, he would tell his agent he wasn’t auditioning. He went to the audition where they were prepared to have him read, but he pulled the director out of the meeting and stated his case, gave the director his reel/resume, told him who he was and basically what he could bring to the project and if he was interested to “holla” back. A couple of weeks later, Reginald would receive a phone call. The two met up, had lunch and discussed the project. “By the time the meeting was over he asked me what I wanted out of the project. I told him I wanted to produce it and play one of the lead roles. We shook hands and never looked back and that was how we starting running with “Kings of the Evening.” It took us about a year to get the financing together for the project. We went to hell and back to really try to give this film everything that it needed, everything we felt that we had to pull together to make it the film that it ultimately became. To my co-producer's credit, he is also the director, Andrew P. Jones. His father, Page our executive producer stepped up and wrote a check and that's how we were able to get the film made. When I first read the material and I saw his name as one of the writers on it, Andrew P. Jones, I automatically assumed he was a brother, but to my surprise after going in and meeting with him, here this White dude is, who along with his father, Robert Page Jones, had
written this beautiful piece about and in honor of African American Men. I was taken a bit back by it, but at the same time I realized that great work is colorless, it's colorblind in the since that anybody could have played these roles, it just happened to have been a story that pertained to the struggles of African American Men during the 1930's,” Reginald said. Reginald, as a producer of African American culture, played a big part in bringing his talents to the piece. It was almost like they built the house, but Reginald brought in the furniture. “It’s what great collaborations are all about, everyone brings something to the table. We were able to pull an amazing cast together, starting with my brother Glynn Turman, as well as, Lynn Whitfield, Tyson Beckford, Linara Washington, Willard Pugh, Steven Williams, Clyde Jones and LaRita Shelby; people who I've always admired, who I've worked with in the past and who, at that time, I felt were deserving of a great opportunity. So, if I never make another film again, I was able to bring together the people that I felt could not only do the work, but were also deserving to be a part of something as special as “Kings of the Evening.” Everywhere the film showed, we not only got great response from our audience, but it’s an Award Winning Film, it’s Critically Acclaimed across the board by some of the country's best critics and we felt like we had a really good film that we would go out and present to that audience in a way that they would not only grow with the film, but in the end, appreciate it. Although the film was a hit on the film festival circuit, the realities of Hollywood would still come into play; because it wasn't an urban genre, because it wasn't a comedy, because it didn't have hip-hop artists in it, those were all the reasons why we were denied having a
major release, in addition to the fact