When Cicely Tyson was awarded an honorary Oscar at the 2018 Governors Awards, Shola Lynch was tasked with directing a short film to introduce the trailblazing actor to the crowd.
“I was like, ‘Oh my god, it would be so amazing … We need to tell the story of Black women in Hollywood,'” Lynch recalls dreaming up.
While she received praise for the short, her bigger vision was shot down. “It was just going to be all too much, and I didn’t understand at the time,” Lynch says.
Now, in 2025, Lynch tells TODAY.com that she got to “make the film that I wanted to make” with “Number One on the Call Sheet,” a two-part documentary from Apple TV+ that follows the experiences of Black leading men and women in Hollywood. Told through candid interviews, the documentary touches on the harsh realities of casting, authentic stories and what some of the industry’s biggest names hope for the future.
Directed by Reginald Hudlin, Part One spotlights Black male actors, including Jamie Foxx, Kevin Hart, Don Cheadle, Idris Elba and more. Part Two turns to the stories of leading Black women and features conversations with Angela Bassett, Viola Davis and the star Lynch says she “had to have” โย Whoopi Goldberg.
“When I got the call to direct this, I was like, ‘This is an incredible opportunity. This is a way to make the film that I wanted to make,'” Lynch says. “And my only regret is that all of this happened (after) Ms. Cicely Tyson passed.”
A star-studded lineup
Lynch’s 90-minute documentary, “Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Women in Hollywood,” features a star-studded cast composed of:
- Angela Bassett
- Halle Berry
- Viola Davis
- Whoopi Goldberg
- Cynthia Erivo
- Vivica A. Fox
- Meagan Good
- Tiffany Haddish
- Taraji P. Henson
- Nia Long
- Ruth Negga
- Gabourey Sidibe
- Jurnee Smollett
- Octavia Spencer
- Tessa Thompson
- Gabrielle Union
- Alfre Woodard
As for how the project landed all that star power, Lynch jokes, “It was not me, I can tell you that.”
Lynch says one interview she specifically “kept pushing” for was Goldberg. Originally, the goal was to conduct all the interviews in a span of two weeks. (“I know … what were we even thinking?” Lynch says with a laugh.) She also acknowledges that participating in the project was no small ask.
“We’re asking them each to sit down for an interview, to share part of themselves. And it’s not a paying gig. Documentaries are not lucrative, and it’s not their production company. And so the business on that was difficult,” she says. “But they understood the power of telling the story in this context.”
She credits the film’s executive producers โ which includes Bassett, Berry, Davis and Goldberg โย with giving participants a sense of “comfort.”
Part of the documentary explores the importance for actresses to not only be No. 1 on a project but also lead behind the scenes as a producer or director. Having some of those very women be executive producers of “Number One on the Call Sheet” “sends the right signal to all the other people we’re trying to bring into the project,” Lynch says.
“Filmmaking is a team event,” Lynch says. “You can’t just have one star. You need everybody to be functioning at a high level. And everybody who worked on this film is kind of No. 1 on the call sheet in their arena.”
An ‘enormous orchestra’
Each interview ranged in length from 45 minutes to up to two hours, Lynch says. Her job was to distill the interviews into a comprehensive narrative, and more importantly, make it feel like each actor was in a dialogue with the other.
“What I wanted to do is have them be in conversation with each other, even though it never would have happened, like the scheduling could have never happened,” she says. “So having Whoopi, as the person who’s been doing it the longest, all the way to Meagan and Jurnee and a nod to all of the wonderful young actresses coming up … I thought that was really important.”
Lynch also addresses those not involved in the project, adding, “If anybody’s missing, it’s scheduling,” she says.
The director’s goal was for each interviewee to feel โย โfrom the momentโ they walked on set โ welcome and safe, she says. After all, the heart of the project comes from the interviews, which Lynch says reminded her that celebrities aren’t untouchable, but just people.
“I got to have a conversation with Halle Berry, the person. Angela Bassett, the person. Cynthia Erivo, the person,” she says. “There is delight and pleasure in that, and I hope that comes through in the film.”
She anticipated the experience to be interesting โ a story to tell her teenagers, recapping who all she got to meet and interview. But what she didn’t expect was for it to be inspiring and ultimately, relatable, she says.
“Because whether you’re a school teacher or a documentary filmmaker or a journalist, we should each want to be No. 1 on the call sheet,” she says. “And we should be working toward that in our purpose to be excellent.”
That focus on excellence, Lynch says, is why she decided not to change the project’s title.
โIt signifies greatness. If we can have everybody in the world talking about being No. 1 on their call sheet, how amazing would that be?โ
What’s next?
“Number One on the Call Sheet” ends with the note of celebrating all that Black actresses have accomplished, while pointing out industry-wide areas of growth, from pay disparity to lack of diversity when it comes to major awards. For example, in the best actress category at the Oscars, only one Black woman has taken home the statuette โ Berry, in 2002 for “Monster’s Ball.”
When it comes to the legacy of this documentary, Lynch says she wants it to represent “a testimonial of this moment.”
“I direct it, but it’s only what they chose to share and what I could kind of bring out of them, and we’ve never had that before,” she says.
Lynch calls the documentary itself a “historic event” by virtue of its premise: A project grounded in interviews with 17 Black leading women in Hollywood.
“And they’re more, right? We only interviewed 17,” she says. “There has been no other period in history where that has been true.”
She adds, “But wouldn’t it have been amazing to have this kind of conversation in the ’70s during Blaxploitation era? That would have been amazing,ย but it doesn’t exist … So this is historic.”
