Alumna Tamera Tomakili ’19 stars in the new sports drama Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty currently streaming on HBO Max.
The 10-episode series, co-created by Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht and executive produced by Adam McKay (Succession, The Big Short, Don’t Look Up), follows the intertwining professional and personal lives of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, one of basketball’s most revered and dominant dynasties.
Tomakili stars as Cookie Kelly, the on-again, off-again girlfriend of—and later, wife and business partner to—the famous Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who played for the Lakers in that era. She joins an ensemble cast that includes John C. Reilly, Jason Clarke, Adrien Brody, Quincy Isaiah, Sally Field, and Jason Segel.
As an L.A. native, Tomakili grew up very familiar with Cookie Kelly and Magic Johnson. In a recent interview with Collider, Tomakili said, “to finally get to research and read about her [...] felt so good,” adding, “I relate to so much of how she grew up and the things that she wanted to do, and being the only woman in her family or the only person in her family trying to go into an industry where there are not a lot of Black women...Those are the little pieces of gold.”
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is streaming now on HBO Max.
Tamera Tomakili graduated from Columbia University’s MFA Acting Program in 2019. Her screen credits include Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station (Weinstein Company, 2013) and Leigh Davenport’s Run the World, on Starz.
