With director Paul Weitz’s new movie Fatherhood now streaming on Netflix, I recently landed an exclusive interview with Kevin Hart and Bryan Smiley, Exec producer on the film, and President of Film and TV at HartBeat Productions (Hart’s production company). If you haven’t seen the trailers, Fatherhood is about a man (Hart) dealing with the unexpected death of his wife right after childbirth and his attempt to bring up his daughter as a single dad.
During the interview, Hart and Smiley talked about why they wanted to make Fatherhood, the importance of changing the narrative that is attached to black fathers, balancing the drama with humor, how they worked with Weitz in the editing room, and Hart’s great performance (it’s one of the best things he’s done).
However, with HartBeat Productions involved in so many other projects, we also spent a lot of time talking about other things like the way the company adapted to Covid, how Smiley decides what projects get put in front of Hart, Roku picking up Die Hart for a second season, their four-picture deal with Netflix and why it’s so important to hit home-runs with each movie, how streaming has changed the landscape, the status of another Jumanji movie, their Planes, Trains, and Automobiles remake with Will Smith, True Story with Wesley Snipes (they play brothers in dramatic limited event series produced and written by Eric Newman), why Hart is so excited for people to see the Borderlands movie, and more.
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