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Out of all the projects Kim Fields has directed and starred in over the course of her career, one of the most beloved characters she’s played will always be Living Single’s Regine Hunter. As she recently discussed what things were like for her when the hit 90s sitcom came to an end, Fields shared that life at that time wasn’t exactly “what you would expect.”
“I wasn’t checking to do another sitcom and I certainly wasn’t checking to be in a house with a bunch of people again since that’s been much of my career [with Facts of Life and Living Single],” she recalled about that time of her life in an interview with Bustle recently. Speaking on Living Single in particular, she continued “But the tone of the show and the character (Regine) felt like uncharted waters for me. At this stage of my career, it’s all about how I can stretch out as a director, or a producer, or an actor and overall artist.”
Being a 28-year-old who the article noted was feeling “let down by the entertainment industry and in a marriage on its last legs” when the show ended in 1997, Fields explained to Bustle, “I wasn’t angry at God, but I was severely disappointed. I remember thinking, ‘What are y’all doing up there with me?’ I felt like I planted tomatoes and I got telephone poles in my vineyard. It felt so foreign.”
“My life at that moment was not what you would expect,” she later said, giving more context. “I left Living Single a few episodes shy of completing the full season because the work, the process, and everything else didn’t feel the same for me. I was at the point either divorced, or about to be divorced. I started a production company, and we had all these great projects but no deals.”
Candidly, she shared, ”I went through a stage where I completely shut down. I had these black-out curtains in my house, and I closed the drapes and stayed in bed for about two weeks, maybe longer. I didn’t claim depression, but if I’m being real with myself, I’m sure there was a little bit of that out there.”
Thankfully though, Fields was able to find a way out of that trying time. According to her, after watching an inspiring interview where Liza Minnelli talked about the tough times she’d experienced in her own life — and spending some time in nature “looking at God’s work,” Fields pushed forward with the willpower to keep her career moving forward in the path she’d envisioned for herself.
To read the full Bustle story, find it here.
