Snarky ElePHANT PRESS

When Craig T. Williams quit his Chase Bank training program after just three months, he had no idea a stray production-assistant gig would launch a two-decade film career. “I lasted the summer in finance, taught tennis for cash, and kind of floated,” he laughs. “Then a friend said, ‘Come be a PA.’ I didn’t even know what a PA was.”

For more than two decades Drew Leung has been the secret weapon behind blockbuster worlds—one of the “top concept artists in the industry,” as he puts it. His paintings shaped franchises like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and last year’s Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, but something was missing. “I’d spent my whole career illustrating other people’s ideas,” he says. “My ultimate goal is… I want to tell stories, that’s it.”

Mia Renee Henry grew up “all in the family” of entertainment. “My dad was one of the first Black cameramen ABC hired back in ’78,” she recalls proudly, noting that her mother writes screenplays and a cousin directs indie films. That lineage opened doors, but her path has been anything but conventional.