John David Washington

Having famous parents could either be a blessing or a curse to children who want to follow their parents’ paths. They are either compared to their popular parents or they are pressured to live up to the expectations of the public that they are as good as their elders.

A family, a piano: a classic home combination. Add some ghosts and the signature of August Wilson (1945-2005), and the result is a Pulitzer Award drama (1990) that Broadway just reprised, and has been announced as an upcoming movie with the same stage cast.

Nominated: Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - DramaJohn David Washington received his first Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, in which he plays Ron Stallworth, an idealistic black cop who joins the all-white Colorado Spring police force. Based on a memoir by the real-life detective, “Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime”, this stranger-than-fiction tale is John David Washington’s first leading role and tells the story of how Stallworth impersonated a white supremacist and infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s.

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The stars came out and stunned accepting checks on behalf of charities to which the HFPA donates – on the way they made their mark in the fashion stakes. Check out the gallery for what the stars wore when announcing the grants awarded by the HFPA to various charities.

Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman hits US theaters on the strength of the Grand Prix it won in Cannes last May. Produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out), it tells the improbable but true story of undercover cop Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the first black policeman recruited by the Colorado Springs PD in the early seventies, who infiltrates the local branch of the KKK with the help of his white partner (Adam Driver).