Actresses & Artists

Darnell Martin

Born January 7, 1964, in New York City, New York, USA. She is the daughter of mixed race parents, her father was a African-American attorney & her mother who was of Irish descent, was a performer. Both of Darnell's parents were often absent when she was growing up, her father with his legal career & her mother who performed with an African fire-dance troupe. Darnell & her two older sisters lived in a number of New York neighborhoods & the family often relied on welfare to survive. One of these neighborhoods, Morrisania, was a particularly rough area in the early 1970's, her mother tried to create a way for her daughters out of these impoverished areas. At one point she got a job selling souvenirs & moved the family to Manhattan. She also got Darnell a scholarship so she could attend the Barnard College School for Girls & later a boarding school in Greenwich, Connecticut. It was there Darnell first read the novel, Light in August by William Faulkner. In the book, an orphan named Joe Christmas is accused of being mixed race before he's even born & this rumor dogs him for his entire life, before coming to a head in a final moment of savagery. Explaining in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, how the book had touched a chord deep within her, "That a white man from the South, from a different period and a different social structure than I, could write something that was more close to me than anything I have ever read in my life says we're all ... human."

Some time later, she enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College where she studied theatre & literature. She than decided to switch to filmmaking for her graduate studies. Darnell was rejected by all the film schools she applied to, so instead she took a job as a technician in a film laboratory, in Manhattan. She also worked as a bartender & camera renter. Through her film lab job, Darnell met cinematographer-director, Ernest Dickerson, best known for his work in Spike Lee films like, Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991) & Malcom X (1992). Dickerson helped Darnell get a job as a second camera assistant on Lee's film, Do the Right Thing & an Anita Baker music video. Still never having received formal training, Darnell was hired for commercial & short video work. She only made it to New York University's film school, when Lee, an alumnus, made a phone call on her behalf.

Darnell's student film, Suspect, was played at the New York Public Theatre's Young Black Cinema event in 1992 & earned her a fellowship at the prestigious Sundance Institute, in Utah. By this time she had already begun writing her debut film, I Like it Like That (original title, Blackout), her timing would prove advantageous. Darnell took the finished script around to studios, who'd become eager to take on work from young, unproven African-American filmmakers. The recent box office success of Boyz in the Hood, with it's urban themes & already established stars, piqued the interest of studios to the potential in appealing to a new generation of creators. Darnell would be the first woman amongst this first wave of black filmmakers to achieve success.

But it was no easy road to making her debut feature film, New Line Cinema initially offered Darnell $2 million to make it but she would only get 7 weeks to shoot. Despite her being on her last legs financially, she turned down the offer because she didn't think she could produce a good film in such a small time frame. Columbia Tristar Pictures than offered her $5 million for I Like it Like That, this time she accepted. The finished film introduced new stars, John Seda & Lauren Velez; it earned good reviews when shown at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the box office. The film is set in a Hispanic-American neighbourhood in the South Bronx, Velez plays Lisette, a girl of mixed Afro-Latina heritage. Her & Seda's Chino, a bike messenger, are a married couple with 3 children. After Chino is arrested for stealing a radio, Lisette is obliged to get a job to help support her family; she also relies on her family & neighbours for help. Her mother in law played by Rita Moreno, boasted that her Puerto Rican family only had pure Spanish Castilian blood. While her brother encourages her to pursue modelling but instead she accepts a job at a record company, in Manhattan. When her wealthy white boss drives her home one night, her neighbours accuse her of cheating on Chino. The plot of the film echoes Darnell's own life, "Like Martin's own childhood, Lisette's world is crowded with rakish relatives and friends who drop by uninvited, often to deliver unwelcome messages."

Darnell also defended the film's soundtrack which some reviewers claimed was "overpowering" saying in an interview with American Visions that it reflected her childhood, "In New York you have people of all cultures-black, white, Latino-living on top of each other. You hear them talking and shouting, and you hear their music all the time." But she emphasized that the film wasn't an autobiography, save for it's location in the South Bronx. The film was a hit with moviegoers & critics alike. Magazine writer, Alvina Quintana said "...But other aspects of the film suggest that Martin's portrayal of the young multiracial married couple exemplifies the struggle between the visions of the past and those of the future, representing the filmmaker's attempt to challenge outdated cultural models."

Despite such acclaim, it was difficult for her to land her next project. Darnell also took on a teaching position at a youth correctional facility in New York. She collaborated with the rapper, Q-Tip, a former member of the hip-hop group, A Tribe called Quest. Together they produced a musical called, A Prison Song, which never made it's theatrical release despite a solid performance delivered by Mary J. Blige. In the ensuing years, Darnell has worked primarily in television, directing episodes of the, NBC medical drama, ER (1997), HBO prison drama, Oz (1997), Law & Order (2002-10), Grey's Anatomy (2005), Gossip Girl (2010), The Mentalist (2011), Vampire Diaries (2013), Walking Dead (2016) & Sleepy Hollow (2017).

Darnell married Giuseppe Ducret, an Italian artist, whom she met when she was travelling solo in Europe, at the age of 17.

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