Culture

Lights, Camera: Stephen Kunken Ponders Projects in Birmingham, Including About KultureCity

Actor Stephen Kunken looks on as Jefferson County economic development specialist Jeff Traywick speaks. Dec. 18, 2025. (Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.)
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Stephen Kunken knows a good story when he sees it, much less when he lives it.

So someday, perhaps in a theater near you, Kunken may tell the story of KultureCity and its National Accessibility Park at the former Powell Steam Plant building.

“100%. 100%,” the KultureCity board member said. “I am very, very interested, A, in this city. As a director, I’m looking at projects right now to potentially bring down here. I know there’s a burgeoning film community and incentives to come down here.”

But the KultureCity story and the first-of-its-kind accessibility facility it’s set to build has the actor/director mulling ideas with his fellow board members.

“I’m talking with Dr. (Julian) Maha (KultureCity board member) now about how we tell the story that we’re currently on, either through a documentary or some kind of reality series based around how this work is going to get done,” said Kunken, who was in Birmingham as the Jefferson County Commission voted to help fund the project. “I do think it’s potentially … it’s not only uplifting, but it’s a template for other people around the globe to take these steps.

“It just is a force of will,” the “Billions” star said. “That’s one of the most impressive things about Michele (Kong, the KultureCity cofounder) and Julian and Dominique (Wilkins, the former NBA great and KultureCity board chairman). It’s just … they’re a force of will. And that’s how things get done. That’s how things get made. If there’s a way that art can help tell, amplify that story, I am going to try to find it.”