Regina King

It was apparently not enough that she won a Supporting Actress Oscar in 2019 for “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and an Emmy (her fourth) in 2020 for playing a masked cop fighting racism in HBO’s acclaimed limited series “Watchmen.” Regina King has now made her feature directing debut with “One Night in Miami,” based on the true story of the night Sam Cooke, Cassius Clay (soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali), Jim Brown and Malcolm X spent drinking, arguing and discussing their roles in society.  

It took some chutzpah to run a set with all those alpha males — but just as she’d vowed in her acceptance speech when she won the Golden Globe for “Beale Street,” King made sure that the talent she hired for her film was as diverse as possible: more than 70% were women, people of color or members of the LGBTQ community. “I almost wish that I’d have done it and then talked about it, instead of making that promise in my speech,” she told TheWrap. “But it’s good that I came out and said it, because I think it helped inspire other people.”

Courtney A. Kemp

Courtney Kemp may have prompted the biggest TV series question since “Who killed J.R ?” In this case it was “Who killed Ghost?” in her Starz hit series Power. The series just concluded its final season, and Kemp is creating a “Power” Cinematic Universe with four upcoming spinoffs.

The “Power”-verse has always been driven by violent, corrupt male characters, but ironically, the audience is mostly female. With Kemp at the helm and female writer-producers in the rooms where it happens, her shows have featured female-driven narratives, especially her 2020 spinoff “Power Book II: Ghost” featuring a gun-toting Mary J. Blige and Naturi Naughton. But since one network isn’t enough, Kemp also has plans to develop a New York-based cop drama for HBO.

Liz Garbus

It was a good year for female documentary filmmakers: Kirsten Johnson won the Critics Choice Documentary Award for “Dick Johnson Is Dead,” Garrett Bradley won raves for “Time” and Dawn Porter had both “John Lewis: Good Trouble” and “The Way I See It.” Then there is Liz Garbus, former Oscar winner and Emmy nominee. She adapted Michelle McNamara’s book, “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer” for HBO as a limited series. Sadly, McNamara died before the book was published. Her husband, Patton Oswalt, said she would have been pleased. “The documentary was exactly what we wanted it to be,” he told TheWrap, “the focus being on the victims and the hunters, and the way this insect haunted them. Liz was able to leap back and forth — sometimes across decades — without ever losing her footing.”

And along with co-director Lisa Cortes, Garbus also gave us “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” a film about voter suppression that focuses on Georgia politician Stacey Abrams. “From the pandemic to the fate of our democracy, it feels like everything has been on the line in 2020,” said Garbus, who also finished her narrative feature debut, “Lost Girls.” “I think 2020 has taught us to take nothing for granted, that living in a compassionate society requires all of us to spend our time working on what really matters.” 

Martha Henderson

As executive vice president and manager of entertainment banking at City National Bank, Henderson secured for her clients some 6,000 Paycheck Protection Program loans worth more than $800 million. Henderson said “the blizzard” of those who needed help was more than she’s seen in her 40 years of banking. More will be needed, but without these 2020 funds, many companies that make up the lifeblood of Hollywood would have doubtless closed their doors.

Jennifer Salke

It may not be Rudolph Giuliani’s favorite movie, but a lot of others obviously disagree. “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” has been watched by tens of millions of Amazon Prime subscribers, and the one it makes happiest is likely Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios. Being part of a global retailing powerhouse has made Salke well aware that, particularly during a time of pandemic, the goal is building on Amazon Prime’s streaming brand. She is thinking globally, as in deals with Nicole Kidman, Gael García Bernal and Brad Pitt’s Plan B. Not to mention staying in tune with the Black Lives Matter movement: Salke nabbed Lena Waithe from Showtime, has a nine-episode adaptation of “The Underground Railroad” from Barry Jenkins coming soon, and bought Regina King’s “One Night in Miami,” opening shortly.  

In the pre-COVID days, Salke flew to London to meet with Steve McQueen, who was looking for a streaming outlet for his “Small Axe” collection of films, which were set to air on the BBC. When he told her about his “very unique standalone movies,” she told TheWrap, she was sure the films would appeal to the diverse community of Prime viewers in more than 240 countries and territories. “I ended up going down the rabbit hole to do research and I realized that these are stories that needed to be told.”

Throughout her career at Twentieth Century Fox TV, at NBC Entertainment and now at Amazon, all companies in a moment of a downturn when she arrived, Salke delivered the same mandate: “Take big swings.” It was something she learned from her former Fox boss, Peter Chernin, who told her,” I would rather you do something big that fails than make something that plods along in obscurity.” Hence, Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat.” “It was a big decision,” she said. “I had a stomachache. Sacha said it needed to be released before the election. People need to laugh at the stress and it turned out to be just what the doctor ordered” — for the country, and for her tummy.

Francesca Orsi & Amy Gravitt

And in 2020, the Emmy goes to … Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming, whose teams celebrated Emmy wins for “Watchmen,” “Succession,” “Euphoria” and “I Know This Much Is True.”

And with the recent success of series including “Perry Mason,” “Lovecraft Country” and “We Are Who We Are,” Orsi’s role overseeing drama series was expanded in 2020 to include HBO films. She’s also a board member of Extraordinary Families, a foster and adoption agency.

EVP Amy Gravitt, meanwhile, is a former lieutenant in the U.S Navy who now specializes in comedies at HBO. “I’ve always been impressed by how Hollywood crews operate and how the collaboration of so many people with specialized skills mimics what I saw on the Connie (USS Constellation),” said Gravitt, who was responsible for developing 2020’s cult hit “I May Destroy You” and for developing and overseeing Issa Rae and Larry Wilmore’s acclaimed comedy series “Insecure” as well as “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” the first series to have a cast and writers’ room of entirely Black women.  

Sophia Loren

Talk about a comeback. “The Life Ahead” is Sophia Loren’s first screen appearance in 10 years, and it comes more than half a century after she burst on the scene in 1961, winning the Oscar for “Two Women” and going on to star opposite a who’s who of leading men: Cary Grant, Paul Newman and, most memorably, Marcello Mastroianni. That explosive duo took us through love, marriage, and divorce Italian style.

In the current film for Netflix, she portrays Madame Rosa, a Holocaust survivor and former prostitute who takes in a 12-year-old street boy from Senegal. It may be the unlikeliest and most touching love story of the year, directed by Loren’s son, Edoardo Ponti. “The most surprising thing about her is how she approaches every film as if it were her first,” Ponti told TheWrap. “Not one bone of her being or craft has been jaded by the decades of work, and this is what keeps her performances fresh, spontaneous and always new.” 

Anya Taylor-Joy

The Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit” took off like a rocket, and much of that has to do with Anya Taylor-Joy, the young woman cast in the lead role of Beth Harmon. She has made chess fashionable — eBay has seen an increase of 215% in sales of sets — not to mention giving young women hope, and maybe the courage, to take on challenges in traditionally male arenas. Taylor-Joy herself told The Wrap, “2020 has been incredibly challenging for many people and, for my part, I just feel immensely grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to create art within it.”

Her previous leading role, in the latest incarnation of Jane Austen’s “Emma,” was a hint, but the star power emerged when she took hold of those rooks and pawns. “Anya embodied the complexity and intelligence we needed,” said casting director Ellen Lewis. “There’s a strength and intelligence and drive for her passion that makes her — despite past trauma — not a victim.” 

Margot Robbie

She landed her second Oscar nomination at the beginning of 2020 for “Bombshell,” but Margot Robbie really changed things this year because of what she did behind the scenes. In collaboration with Hodson Exports, Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment created a screenwriting lab for women, the Lucky Exports Pitch Program, and every one of the six participants made sales with commitments for distribution — and all in action or other genres normally dominated by men. LuckyChap is also developing two dozen different properties, including one in which Robbie will bring the iconic Barbie doll to cinematic life for Warner Brothers. 

Yamiche Alcindor

Arguably President Trump’s least favorite reporter on the scene, Alcindor is the political correspondent for PBS’ “NewsHour” and a regular contributor to NBC and MSNBC. She was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists, as well as earning the Gwen Ifill Award. When Alcindor memorably tried to get a response about the country’s testing, the president replied, “You should be saying congratulations instead of asking a snarky question.” 

Sarah Cooper

How many people not only survived but soared to fame during the pandemic? And how many did so by lip-syncing to the words of Donald Trump? Sarah Cooper did. This Jamaican-American comic-actress-author posted instantly-viral videos of her uncanny creation on TikTok. (She was such a sensation that some believed it’s why the president tried to get it banned in the U.S.) She was soon the toast of the late-night talk shows, followed by her own special, “Everything’s Fine,” on Netflix. In 2021, look for a CBS comedy based on her book “How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings.” 

Imara Jones

Imara Jones created TransLash media, a mix of journalism and personal storytelling, to combat what she sees as the too-slow acceptance of the trans community. With degrees from Columbia and the London School of Economics, (she held economic positions in the Clinton White House), Jones is a prominent speaker, host and writer on the issues of social justice and inequality. She is a true influencer, who did not slow down even when the world did.

“Years like 2020 are revelatory,” she told TheWrap. “They show us who and what we are. 2020 was generative for me in that it underscored the importance of my work and clarified the parts of which were critical. I prefer the word generative over productive, because to think productivity, in an economic sense, when there are hundreds of thousands of dead this year seems to not grasp the impact of this moment.” And why does she think so many relate to her message? “It’s because I center the humanity of trans people and in so doing, provide a gateway to other people to both connect with us and find their own selves,” she said. 

Charli D’Amelio

She is only 16 but she recently became the first person to attract 100 million followers on TikTok. (Only two others, Addison Rae and Zach King, have even topped 50 million.) A former competitive dancer from Connecticut, Charli D’Amelio has become a social media sensation, appeared in a Super Bowl commercial and in a Jennifer Lopez video. An executive at UTA, Greg Goodfried, left his post there to run the D’Amelio Family Enterprises. She is the poster girl of social media, and if ever there was a year that was friendly to those who could do their relatable and entertaining thing from home, it was 2020.