Lovecraft Country Star Jurnee Smollett Nominated for Critics Choice Awards

Lovecraft Country‘s Jurnee Smollett nabbed two nominations for the Critics Choice Awards this week. The Birds of Prey star is up for Best Actress in a Superhero Movie and Best Actress in a Horror Series. It’s been a strange year at the movies for sure, but her work on television has also helped raise her profile even further. Earlier this year, the Black Canary actress came through for Comicbook.com’s Birds of Prey Watch Party during the quarantine period. Fans turned out for that movie in a major way during the event, and the nod here points towards critics appreciating the DC Comics feature as well. Meanwhile, coming off of Watchmen, HBO brought more of the heat with Lovecraft Country. It became clear that Smollett’s performance here was the highlight of the show for a lot of viewers weighing in on social media.

Last October, the actress talked about how her Black Canary compares to the comic version of the character with DC Daily.

“She’s the Dinah Lance that we know and love from the comics, you know?” Smollett-Bell admitted. “This ferocious street fighter. When we meet Dinah in the film, though, she’s a singer in Roman’s Black Mask club, and she’s kind of disenfranchised and disconnected from the world. She doesn’t really want to have anything to do with crime fighting or being a good-doer, which is so against her nature because we know Dinah to be all heart. So it’s really about her accepting her gift and accepting her power and that’s what was so fascinating for me is to explore this woman who has such strength, but exploring someone who doesn’t want to own her power.”

Before that, Birds of Prey screenwriter Christina Hodson told Comicbook.com about making her origin story for the film. It’s clear the approach would have to be switched up.

“It’s always fun introducing audiences to a new character,” Hodson told us when asked about the creative process. “It’s great doing a deep dive into all the different characters, doing my research on the characters collectively bit also individually and getting to know them a bit more, and then feeling free to go off-leash a little bit and do something new and different and bring them to screen in a way that felt right alongside Harley.”

Would you like to see the actress take down the Superhero award or the Horror one? Let us know down in the comments!