She's the senior producer at Collider where she hosts and produces the interview series, Collider Ladies Night, a show geared towards highlighting the need-to-know female voices in film and television.
On top of that, Perri frequently moderates post-screening Q&As and panels at film festivals and conventions including San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic Con, and can be seen on the big screen in the Noovie pre-show segment, Close-up with Perri Nemiroff. She’s also a Top Critic on Rotten Tomatoes, a proud member of the Critics Choice Association and is a Gold Derby Expert.
Perri splits her time between Los Angeles and New York. Wherever the film and television coverage takes her, she goes!
Kara Young isn’t a breakout star in 2026. She’s been nominated for four Tony Awards and won two of them, one for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Purlie Victorious and then another for her work in Purpose. But, hopes are very high that her new movie, Is God Is, will make her a sought-after talent on screen as well.
Is God Is is downright electrifying. It’s a bold and singularly stylish revenge thriller packed to the brim with powerhouse performances, but anchored by a lead duo that’s utter perfection — Young and Johnson. Johnson’s Anaia is dubbed “the quiet one” whereas Young’s Racine is “the rough one,” and Young absolutely soars while portraying Racine’s unbridled determination and ferocity. Young is currently on Broadway yet again, this time sharing the stage with Ayo Edebiriand Don Cheadle in Proof, but if she wants to carve out a bigger space for herself on screen moving forward, I can’t imagine a stronger calling card than her spellbinding work in Is God Is.
What Is It Really Like Getting 4 Tony Nominations and 2 Wins?
“I still feel like that girl who's working five jobs and trying to do a show.”
Image via Amazon MGM Studios
Young is a regular at the Tony Awards at this point, but when asked to describe the feeling of being nominated and, in some cases, winning one of theater’s most prestigious honors, she admitted, “To be very honest, it always feels like, ‘What?’ And it always feels like, ‘Huh?!’” She added, “I'm very aware it happened, but it feels like time is going so fast, but then I still feel like that girl who's working five jobs and trying to do a show.”
Young’s approach to her work evolves from project to project, but she holds tight to one particular truth every single step of the way:
“I have an intention to do justice to the story, a justice to the writer, a justice to the world, and even more importantly, humanity for the character. And, the fact that I'm a Black woman through this Black vessel, humanity for all of us. And in the hopes of shifting consciousness within humanity through a character that, more than likely, is someone who is not seen very much or not heard very much, so when telling a story, it feels as if our words are very, very, very important to be heard.”
That mentality is well represented in how Young remembers all of her Tony nominations, going back to her very first one for Clyde’s.
“I had the honor of stepping into the role of Letitia, who was formerly incarcerated and was taking care of her very sickly child, and she was rehabilitating herself into society and working at a sandwich shop. The way that she was incarcerated was the fact that she was trying to take medication for her child. So we're talking about a broken health care system, we're talking about the ramifications, necessitations of capitalism. We're talking about a woman who is going through the world and trying not to fail yet the whole system and America is failing her. You're talking about a mother who's trying to survive and who happens to be incredibly resilient.”
Next up was a nomination for Cost of Living. Young explained, “This woman is a first-generation American person who is living out of her car. It's like, this is a real person who is literally working, working, working hard, a Princeton grad, and who's living out of her car.”
From there, Young earned her first Tony Award win for Purlie Victorious. “That was also a woman who was a domestic worker and speaking for, really, women who are not seen or heard, and the voice of a million Black women, for sure." Then, the very next year, Young won again for her performance in Purpose.
“To describe it, it's like, I don't even know how to even grasp what happened. But it feels like the work is important and needs to be seen, needs to be heard, and is helping to change the world. That's how I feel. And I know it sounds corny, but that's how I feel.”
Young is following all of that up with yet another story that needs to be seen, but this time, on the big screen.
Kara Young Made ‘Is God Is’ with a Visionary Director
“Aleshea says jump, I’m gonna jump.”
Image via Amazon MGM Studios
Is God Is is Aleshea Harris’ first feature. She’s an accomplished playwright who’s adapting her own material, but Is God Is is a staggeringly impressive debut film. In fact, it’d be an impressive creative feat for any filmmaker, let alone one making her very first movie. Young explained, “Is God Is is so big. It's a big story. It's very complex characters. It's such an intricate world, even to the language.”
She continued:
“A first-time film director, people are shocked, but what we are getting is a visionary whose vision is so clear, which is a treat for us to consume, see, experience, and it should be experienced in a theater. It should be experienced on that big screen because every detail, every single detail in every single frame, is Aleshea Harris. Obviously, with the DP and the production design, but she's one of one.”
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Young added, “Aleshea says jump, I’m gonna jump.” And jump she did. The character of Racine demands a fearless performer, and Harris found just that in Young.
“I just jumped. It was a go-for-it type of thing. It was all of the research, all of the breaking down, all of the histories, building history based off all of the clues that Aleshea had given us. It's all of the above. But there is also a jump into the fire. No pun intended, but it's literally that, of just going for, where does she operate from? Her gut and her heart. What are these survival instincts, and how do they work when you finally know the roots of your pain and the roots of your trauma? And how do you seek justice for your creator when someone has done God wrong? How do you seek justice for God? In this sense, my mom.”
Do not miss Young’s commanding performance as Racine in Is God Is, now playing in theaters nationwide. And be sure to catch Young’s full Collider Ladies Night interview in the video at the top of this article.
Image via Orion Pictures
Image via Amazon MGM Studios
English (US) ·