Sunday night brings Lifetime’s latest reality-inspired inspirational story, “Giving Hope: The Ni’Cola Mitchell Story.”
The Jamaican-born Mitchell (played by Tatyana Ali) has survived unspeakable sexual abuse and a cancer diagnosis. As a writer, publisher and speaker, she’s used her life’s traumatic events to help others, founding Girls Who Brunch, which are events designed to make young women feel seen and empowered.
“The script had me in tears, it was very emotional,” Ali, 44, said at a Zoom press conference. Inspiring as well were, “The women I got to work with on this — incredibly talented, good, Black women that I got to craft this story with in my part as an actor. That will never leave me.
“For me personally,” she continued, “turning trauma into power is one of the themes of this film. That’s important. ‘To love yourself by loving others’ is another theme.”
Telling and sharing your story of inspiration, she believes, is very personal, different for each person, but necessary. “If there’s trauma in your past your testimony sometimes can open things but oh my goodness! who you become on the other side of it is something you can’t imagine.
“You realize you’re not alone. You find people who have similarities to what you’ve been through, this sharing, which is for men and women. It’s something we need. The first step sometimes is telling the truth about what you’ve experienced yourself.
“This is our time to tell our stories,” she added, “because they have an impact far beyond your lifetime.”
Ali is married, a mother of two and a Harvard political science graduate. She began acting at six and became a child star opposite Will Smith on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” That led to a music career with chart-topping singles and at 18 a recurring role in the daytime soap “The Young and the Restless” (2007-2013).
With her many credits, it’s nevertheless daunting to play an actual living person – who is there on the set.
“It was amazing watching her. Tatyana covered everything about me. I did not realize how soft spoken I am or how slowly I speak,” Mitchell, 44, said. “My favorite part is when she’s writing the story in her book at work. I started crying — I remembered the hope I was going to become something. She embodied all of that.
“I grew up beside her,” she said of “Fresh Prince,” “so that she was the one picked to play me was amazing.”
Ali praised Mitchell, “For this incredible spirit, this way about her. Gentle, loving but with a force- of-nature beingness about her. It’s so powerful. I wanted to do it right.”
“Giving Hope: The Ni’Cola Mitchell Story,” airs Sunday on Lifetime