KARYN PARSONS BIO

Assured young actor who gained exposure playing Hilary Banks, the spoiled, self-centered cousin of Will Smith on the hit sitcom, "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" (NBC, 1990-96). Parsons had previously worked as a model and appeared in nearly two dozen TV commercials before making her TV debut in "Roughhouse" (CBS, 1988), a busted pilot directed by Martha Coolidge. She began to branch out into a feature career playing the female lead in "Class Act" (1992), a teen comedy starring pop rappers Kid 'N' Play. Parsons was selected to perform similar chores opposite Damon Wayans in "Major Payne" (1995). She returned to series TV in 1996 co-starring with Lori Petty in the short-lived Fox sitcom "Lush Life," in which the two played roommates.

Karyn has gone on to found and produce "Sweet Blackberry," an award-winning series of children's animated films, to share stories about unsung black heroes in history, featuring narration from stars such as Alfre Woodard, Queen Latifah, and Chris Rock. The videos have been screened on HBO and Netflix, and enjoyed by schools and libraries across the country. She is the author of Flying Free: How Bessie Coleman's Dreams Took Flight and How High the Moon. Karyn married director Alexandre Rockwell (In the Soup, 13 Moons) - who was formerly married to Jennifer Beals, who, along with Sam Rockwell is an exec producer on her latest film, SWEET THING. Karyn lives with her family in New York City.

ABOUT SWEET THING, IN VIRTUAL THEATERS JUNE 18th

SYNOPSIS

Two children in contemporary New Bedford, Massachusetts spend an eventful summer in a beach house with their mother and her boyfriend in SWEET THING, director Alexandre Rockwell's poetic, uplifting rendering of childhood which captured the Berlinale Crystal Bear in the Generation K-plus section in 2020. 

In SWEET THING, Billie (Lana Rockwell, Little Feet), a 15-year-old girl who fantasizes Billie Holiday as a sort of fairy godmother, is forced to navigate the evolving challenges of her life while she plays mother to her 11-year-old brother, Nico (Nico Rockwell, Little Feet). They soon meet up with another adolescent, run away from home, and together roam the area free from their parents' watchful gaze. Discovering freedom and enchantment among New Bedford's boats and railway tracks, the trio fantasize about a life of luxury when they break into a posh home, and are able to carry the taste of affluence into their adventures. An ode to that trying age when young people prepare to take their first step into adulthood, SWEET THING, starring Rockwell's children Lana and Nico, Karyn Parsons and Will Patton, is an intense but ultimately uplifting, portrait that captures the essence of that time in life when a day can last forever.

Here's the trailer: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpQxMrGPSy4


"A lively, bittersweet meditation on an impoverished childhood that is still rich in innocence and imagination.... With verve and vitality it pays a dreamy-eyed retrospective debt to films past, and largely due to the beguiling performance from Rockwell's own daughter Lana, ultimately delivers a moving, tousled journey of discovery...."-- Jessica Kiang, Variety

"Rockwell's film about specific heartbreaking circumstances is accessibly potent in its portrayal of childhood and memory. He taps into the experience of complex emotions - fear mixed with hope, love entangled with heartbreak, and childhood prematurely ripped away - in ways that exemplify the unique potential of cinema." -- Mary-Catherine Harvey, The Upcoming

"Gorgeous... stunningly rendered....this is a film that deserves to be seen"-- Stephen Silver , Goomba Stomp