Apple TV+ documentary ‘Number One on the Call Sheet’ celebrates Hollywood’s Black A-listers

There are plenty of documentaries about the relationship between Black Americans and Hollywood, but the new two-part documentary “Number One on the Call Sheet” on Apple TV+  examines the heights of success. 

“It’s a story about triumph,” Reggie Hudlin, who directed the first installment, about Black leading men, told NBC News. “It’s a story about making dreams come true.”

His installment includes some of the biggest names in the business, such as Denzel Washington, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Idris Elba and more. Jamie Foxx and Kevin Hart, who are interviewed, also produced the documentaries.

Hudlin explores how these dreams came true and if they were ever dreams each man consciously pursued. The breadth of answers show how there is no single path to becoming a successful Black leading man in Hollywood.

As a veteran director of the classics “House Party” and “Boomerang” and the producer of “Django Unchained,” Hudlin, who can be seen interviewing the actors, comes across more as a peer among the men. That dynamic gives their conversation added intimacy. Some segments feel more like eavesdropping.

“It was a very relaxed environment because it wasn’t all ‘We’re going to promote the latest movie,’” Hudlin explained. “We’re just talking, right? There just happened to be cameras there. So it was wonderful.”

Eddie Murphy catapulted to fame after joining the “Saturday Night Live” cast at age 19. He talks about there being no blueprint for a Black leading man finding instant stardom, especially given how actively Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte worked to open those doors.

Hudlin also asks the actors about life beyond work. “I think there are some really powerful stories from Will Smith and Kevin Hart and Jamie Foxx” talking about work-life balance, Hudlin said, “which, you know, often are questions that people ask women, right? Men care about their spouses and their kids too.”

Smith shares his shortcomings as a father when discussing his daughter Willow, who found early success in music at age 10 with her 2011 single “Whip My Hair.” Johnson reveals how he changed his approach to family and Hollywood success after his first marriage failed.

Unlike Hudlin, Shola Lynch, who directs the second installment, on Black women, did not have the same Hollywood familiarity. Instead, the documentary filmmaker behind “Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed” and “Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners” said she also views her role through a historical lens.

“It’s kind of incredible that there are 17” Black women in Hollywood who could be considered leading ladies, “and that’s not the entirety of who we could have interviewed,” she said. “So it’s a way of marking a period in time.”

Those 17 women include Angela Bassett, Whoopi Goldberg, Gabrielle Union, Halle Berry, Viola Davis, Alfre Woodard and more.

Whether it’s Nia Long speaking about John Singleton or Berry discussing her approach to auditioning for Spike Lee in “Jungle Fever,” viewers may notice that men factor into these conversations more prominently than women did in the accompanying installment.

“It’s part of the construction of how women are placed in Hollywood,” Lynch said. “They are the leading woman, basically to support the man. That’s been the tradition, right? And so a lot of the women have had some of their bigger jobs because of being pulled into a Will Smith movie or something. That’s just the function of sexism in our society, and then it gets replicated in Hollywood, and the women’s story is about navigating that.”

Both Union and Davis discuss the limited opportunities Black women have had to lead on screen. Union gets candid about how playing the best friend to white women leads due to her palatable mainstream look dots most of her early résumé, while Davis dishes on how few leading roles there are for women of her age and hue. Octavia Spencer outlines her early career playing nurses while Long addresses the rumors about her being “difficult.”

It’s not the challenges, however, that shine most here. Instead, it’s something more essential, Lynch notes.

“What I thought was beautiful is the brotherhood, sisterhood part of it,” Lynch said of the project as a whole. “We need to see each other more and identify that excellence because, honestly, if you’re at the top of the game, it’s for a reason.”