Exclusive Interview with Queen Latifah: Living Life to the Fullest

by | Mar 24, 2005 | celebrities, Exclusive Interviews | 0 comments

When Queen Latifah’s debut album All Hail the Queen hit record stores in 1989, the mostly male-dominated rap world knew right away she was a force to be reckoned with.

Surrounded by testosterone-only crews like Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy and Run D.M.C., Queen Latifah emerged solo—standing tall, beautiful, bold, and female to serve up a much-needed dose of positive rap from a feminist perspective.

With hits like Ladies First, Evil That Men Do, and Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children, the 16-year-old Latifah had more than a few of her fellow emcees bowing down to her lyrical sovereignty.

Fast forward and Latifah is still doing her queenly thing. Only this time, she’s headed to the top of another male-dominated industry—Hollywood movie producing—where she is determined to prove that being talented, female, black and ambitious is anything but a disadvantage.

In 2002, Latifah produced her first motion picture comedy Bringing Down the House, starring herself and Steve Martin, which sent number-crunching studio execs into a state of shock and awe when it grossed over $150 million worldwide.

In theaters this week is Latifah’s latest offering, Beauty Shop (produced by and starring herself), a hilarious comedy featuring an all-star cast that includes Alicia Silverstone, Kevin Bacon, Mena Suvari, Djimon Hounsou, Alfre Woodard, Keisha Knight Pulliam and Andie MacDowell. A spin-off of Ice Cube’s Barbershop 2: Back in Business, in which Latifah played Gina (the beautician next door), Beauty Shop follows Gina to Atlanta where she opens her own shop and strikes up a romance with a tall, dark and sexy handyman (Joe) played by Djimon Hounsou. In the movie, Latifah gifts Hounsou with the first kissing scene of his career, which he says he was happy to reshoot over a dozen times. “Latifah’s a great kisser, Hounsou reveals. “I wasn’t complaining.”

We recently caught up with Queen Latifah to talk with her about her new movie, her successful career and her plans for the future, and the Queen offered up a generous dose of wisdom and love to share with our readers.

KC: Thank you, Latifah, for taking the time to talk to us.

QL: Rolling Out has always supported everything I’ve done in a big way and I really appreciate that, so, thank you.

KC: Your Beauty Shop cast raved about working for and with you. Alicia, Keisha, Alfre, Mena…all of them said coming to work was like coming to a family reunion every day.

QL: That’s definitely a tone that I try to set. I want people to feel comfortable coming to work. I want them to feel good about what they’re doing every day. It contributes to a great process for everyone.

KC: As a black actress, you have often been the only person of color on set. How important is it to make sure your set is diverse?

QL: When I’m in control you’ll never see an all-white set. You’re not going to see an all-black set. You’re always going to see a mixture of people. I have been to sets when it was all white; where no one there looked like me. I didn’t feel alienated necessarily, but it’s nice to be able to see someone who looks like you—someone you can identify with. It’s important that the people at the top are sensitive to what’s going on with everyone. People are just people. I judge you based upon how you treat me, not what you look like.

KC: It’s been reported that you are the first black woman in history to produce a film that grossed over $100 million. What does that mean to you?

QL: It’s never really been about the money. Money isn’t the payoff; it’s one of the perks that come with accomplishing the goal. It was the same thing with ‘Living Single.’ It was the same thing with my first record deal. It’s the same thing now with producing films.

KC:Where does your drive to excel come from? Who inspires you?

QL: I’m inspired by my partner Shakim. Initially it was my whole crew. The whole Flavah Unit. We always sat around and brainstormed and had these dreams of how we could get out of the ‘hood and accomplish things and open up our own businesses and buy homes. Now Shakim’s my inspiration, and I’m his. And our families—making sure they’re taken care of. Making sure that there are opportunities for the people we hire also.

KC: What do you feel your life’s purpose is?

QL: I’m here to do what God wants me to do. I’m here to share my gifts, to give Him the glory and to live life to the fullest.

KC: What do you love most about yourself?

QL: I love my sense of humor. My compassion. My love for life. My love for people.

KC: What is the biggest misconception people have about you?

QL: That I’m confident and secure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I go through my moments too, like everybody else. But I just make it through those moments.

KC: You seem to have such a sense of joy about you; do you think you’ll always be young at heart?

QL: I do. I’m struggling with that right now because I am 35 and am I supposed to [be] grown up. … I’m definitely a grown woman and lovin’ it, but at 35—you’re right—I do have a whole bunch of kid in me, and I’m always going to be young at heart. I never want to be one of those people who’ve forgotten how to live and forgotten how to laugh and forgotten how not to take things too seriously.

KC: What is the most beautiful thing about being a woman?

QL: We’re soft and we’re wise and we’re strong and we give birth, for crying out loud! We create life. We carry life within our bodies [and] that for one is a miracle and it’s amazing. There’s so much to be proud of. …Being strong and being that role model and being that provider when we sometimes haven’t had a man to be the provider.

KC: What is difficult about being a woman?

QL: Oftentimes a woman is violated at a young age.There are too many women who are insecure about their bodies to the point where they want to hack it all up. Women who don’t love themselves—who don’t really even want to take their clothes off or look in the mirror or won’t let their husbands see them without makeup. There are women who have not had orgasms, and have been married for years. Those to me are the flip sides—the tough sides of being a woman.

KC: You said recently that you plan to take some time off to start a family. Will that be soon?

QL: I’m not really going to take time off; I’m just going to take it down some—maybe go behind the scenes more, or just not work quite as much. When I do start a family, my kids have to understand who I am and know that this is what I was born to do. I don’t want to lose myself so that they don’t know their mama loves doing this. They need to come see how it’s done, too. They need to learn how to be little entrepreneurs. I want them to travel and see the world and realize they can be whoever they want to be. But I think it’s important to take enough time off to raise your children and give them a stable environment. That’s the balance I’m going to be looking for—to make sure they have enough of me.

KC: What did your parents do that you want to make sure you do with your children?

QL: My parents communicated a lot with me. They taught me to take responsibility for myself at a young age. They taught me the value of education. They hugged me and kissed me. They loved me, and that was important. I want to make sure my kids are loved and disciplined enough—loved and shown boundaries at the same time. …I want to make sure my kids have a strong spiritual foundation; that they always know God is there when their mama isn’t.

KC: In the Beauty Shop production notes, your brother Lance, who died in 1992, is mentioned.

QL: Everybody close to me is affected by the loss of my brother. God brings you through it, but you never get over it. Over time, it becomes easier to cope with, but you always remember that person, and you miss them like crazy. I feel like I’m going to see my brother again; it’s just going to take awhile. When death touches you that closely you realize life is too short. That really is not just a cliché. Life is really precious, so you have to live.

In memory of her brother, Queen Latifah established The Lancelot H. Owens Scholarship Foundation which awards financial assistance to students in need.

 

 

One on One with Jamie Foxx: He’s Swinging at All the Right Pitches

by | Mar 22, 2005 | celebrities, Exclusive Interviews | 0 comments

I picture Jamie Foxx’s soul thirty-eight years ago floating around in the spirit world preparing for his ordained time here on Earth. An angel is pointing out the lines souls can wait in to get what they need to do good work as human beings.

Foxx is paying extra close attention as the angel explains, “This line is for exceptional musical prowess; that one is the comedic creativity line; to your left 

is the queue for vocal talent, and the lines for courage and humility are right next to each other on the other side of kindness and loyalty. Oh, and don’t forget the one for acting skills—it’s way down there near intelligence and athletic ability. The angel tells Foxx he only has time to stand in four or five of the lengthy queues before leaving for Earth, but he pretends he doesn’t understand the directions and cuts to the front of every one of the lines quite a few times.

Farfetched? Of course. But what other explanation can there be for one man being so d#@ned blessed in so many areas?

For those of us who have been paying attention to Foxx’s career over the years, the fact that the man can play the piano, sing his heart out, and act his behind off is not breaking news. Okay, maybe we didn’t know he had Ray in him, but we watched in awe as he showed what he could do in Redemption, a role that earned him a 2005 Independent Spirit Award nomination for best actor. Then there was Collateral, the blockbuster film co-starring Tom Cruise that earned Foxx the Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. And, last year when he crooned alongside Kanye West on that “Slow Jamz” hit, we all suspected that we might only be scratching the surface of all that this talented brother has to offer.

The lingering question on everyone’s mind, now that the Oscar dust has settled and Foxx has officially joined that exclusive alliance of Academy Award winners, is: What could possibly be next?

I recently asked Foxx that question, and he answered in his characteristically humble way, referring to himself and his soaring career in the third person and refusing to use the word “I” to boast about future goals:

“When you do something and it changes the culture—that’s what we have to do as black folks. When ‘In Living Color’ came along it changed the culture. Denzel and Sidney Poitier, they changed the culture. So, this is one of those opportunities where we see the culture changing.”

Foxx is a little teary-eyed when he adds, “Sidney Poitier said to me, ‘What I’m going to give you is responsibility,’ and to have things like that told to you—it means more than awards. It means more than all of this. It means you have been given a torch to carry.”

The torch of artistic responsibility is one Foxx can definitely handle. In recent years he has been patiently biding his time—rejecting offers that didn’t feel right. “There are a lot of things we could’ve swung at and it would’ve come out bad,” Foxx explains, referring to the decisions he and his management team made to wait for projects that would further his career goals. “Luckily we were able to do like a great baseball player and wait on our pitch; and the pitch was Collateral. The pitch was Ray Charles. The pitch was a record with Kanye West. So when you get a chance to get the right things thrown at you, you stay ready. You know you’re not only here to do the right things, but now people are going to accept it.”

Foxx used another sports metaphor to compare his artistic responsibility to his experience as a high school sophomore playing football on a varsity championship team. “We lost the big game. I saw the seniors crying, and I was like, ‘What are they crying about?’ ‘cause I had more games to play. But my junior and my senior year we never got that far. I call that ‘younging it away.’ We can’t young this away. If we young it away and do not respect those people who laid the path for us, maybe something goes awry and it doesn’t happen the way we want it to happen. That’s why it’s so important to be respectful and let [the elders] know that you’re going to do the right thing.”

Asked what the right thing is, Foxx replied, “You can do whatever you want as long as it’s real, it’s respectful and it’s good. You can never be mediocre. Whatever you do, it has to be great.”

-for RollingOut.com

One on One with Regina King: Being Her Beautiful, Talented, Brilliant Self

by | Mar 7, 2005 | celebrities, Exclusive Interviews | 0 comments

Regina King was 13 years old when she earned a small part in a stage play called 227 at Marla Gibb’s Crossroads Theatre in Los Angeles. After the play’s successful run, it was adapted for television and King won the co-starring role of Brenda Jenkins (the daughter of Gibb’s character Mary Jenkins), a studious, well-behaved teenager who—along with a cast of lovable misfits—entertained TV audiences from the stoop of apartment building 227 for five successful seasons.

When the popular sitcom’s run ended in 1990, the 19-year-old King didn’t sit still for a moment—she immediately made the switch from television to film, appearing in John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood, a movie that drew critical acclaim and set the stage for her to work with Singleton on his next two films, Poetic Justice starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur, and Higher Learning, which featured Omar Epps, Ice Cube and Tyra Banks.

In an industry where black actresses find it difficult to attract quality roles, nearly every year since she began her film career, King has appeared in at least one major motion picture and has co-starred alongside such box office luminaries as Cuba Gooding Jr., Tom Cruise, Angela Bassett, Charlize Theron, Will Smith and Jamie Foxx.

“It’s interesting because people think I’m constantly working,” says King. “But I think it’s just that I‘ve been really blessed in the fact that I’ve been able to do movies that leave a lasting impression. So if the movie lives long—like Jerry Maguire—people are going to be talking about it years later, and it seems to people like I’m always working.”

King’s list of film credits is long and impressive, but she remains both humble and pragmatic about her success. “I have been lucky enough that I’ve never had to do a part because I needed the money. A lot of people are in situations where, for whatever personal reasons, they felt they had to do a certain role. I don’t knock anybody’s choices, I’m just grateful that I have been able to say ‘There’s no way I’m doing that. I’m going to pass on that role.’ I’ve been lucky enough to not live hand to mouth. I don’t ever want to look back and say ‘Ooh, I wish I hadn’t done that movie’ because I’m one of those who say, ‘You do the crime, you got to do the time.’ Don’t get mad at it. You know you did it for whatever reason, and it’s gonna roll with you.”

Of the roles King has taken on, one she found especially challenging was her recent portrayal of Margie Hendricks in Taylor Hackford’s biopic about the life of legendary singer/songwriter, Ray Charles. “For Ray, they wanted me to read for the wife, but I wanted to read for Margie. It was the role that spoke to me. I’ve already done the wife. I felt Margie was going to be the role that was the most challenging. This was going to be the role where I was going to have to dig inside. That was a conscious move.” It was a move that definitely paid off for King. Critics called her portrayal of Charles’ jilted mistress “stirring,” “impressive,” and “superb,” and her moments onscreen with Foxx were among the most intense in the movie.

“To be able to work with Jamie like that—it was fun and it was emotional,” she reveals. “You know, it was like a dance, and when you finally see the dance, it turns out to be this beautiful piece. Everybody knew we were doing something special.” King says she never doubted for a moment that Foxx would win the Academy Award. “He deserved that Oscar,” she declared emphatically. “If not him, then who?”

Up next at the box office for King is Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, a colorful comedy in which she co-stars opposite Sandra Bullock as a grim FBI agent with a penchant for fistfighting. “Got to change it up,” says King of her comedic portrayal of the mean and mannish agent Sam Fuller. “Got to add another character to the repertoire.”

Regarding the physical preparation required for a role in which her character beats down a number of grown men, she explains, “I work out a lot so I was already physically in the right place for it, but I did have to learn some stunt choreography. Stunt choreography is like dancing. You have to duck when you’re supposed to duck. I was practicing with Sandy’s double, and I was supposed to duck, [but] I didn’t, and she was doing a kick and I caught it right in the head.” The beautiful and down-to-earth star shows her natural inclination not to take herself too seriously by placing a hand to the side of her head and joking, “Luckily that’s a hard thing.”

Punching and kickboxing is not the only stunt work required in Miss Congeniality 2. There is also an underwater scene that required King and Bullock to spend a substantial amount of time holding their breath. “The stunt coordinator said we would not be down there for more than 20 seconds at a time,” explains King. “When I first got in the pool I couldn’t hold my breath for 10 seconds, but during filming we were under and we came up and the director was like ‘You guys were down there for 45 seconds!’ It’s amazing what you can do when you’re challenged.” There is another challenging scene in the movie that required King to don fishnet stockings and a shimmering gold mini-dress, but curious fans are just going to have to wait until the March 24th movie release for that mystery to be revealed.

With Miss Congeniality 2 completed and on its way to theaters, Regina is currently working on another comedy project, only this time she won’t need to prepare physically for the role. “I’m doing Boondocks,” she explains, referring to an animated series based on the popular and controversial comic strip created by cartoonist Aaron McGruder. “It’s going to be on Cartoon Network. It’s a lot of fun. We’re five episodes in, and they are all hilarious.” King warns, “Some people will be offended. When you want to make people listen, you’ve got to offend some people sometimes.” She laughs and adds, “It won’t be the first time Aaron has offended someone through his style and his satire. I think he’s brilliant.”

Since the Boondocks project requires only voiceover work, King gets to spend a lot more time at home with her husband Ian and their 9-year-old son, Ian Jr. “It’s been great because I don’t have to do makeup and hair, and the recording studio is only 15 minutes from my house,” she says.

Throughout her career, home has always remained King’s number one priority. She admits it hasn’t been easy, but when it comes to managing a successful film career and a happy household, she has always worked to put family first. “I can’t say there’s a certain formula, but everything has fallen into place and works the way it should. I’m blessed to be in a situation where I don’t have to have a nanny. I don’t want to miss any of my son’s firsts.”

King takes her role as parent and role model for her son very seriously, but she isn’t just committed to her own child’s development—she’s trying to make a difference in the lives of as many young people as she can personally reach by visiting schools and talking to kids about developing healthy self-esteem. “I am addressing my young sistas [saying] ‘embrace your beauty and your individuality.’ I go to the high schools and elementary schools and I see them trying to emulate what they see in the music videos; it makes me want to cry—it really does. Unfortunately we are not represented well on television and in the movies and I want these young people to know that that isn’t all that we are—shaking our behinds in videos.”

In her career, King works hard to project an image that says black women can be beautiful, strong and confident—without taking their clothes off. “I try to encourage people in the industry to do it differently,” says King. “We all have a responsibility to try to create a better image. No disrespect to the rappers, but couldn’t we do a different video? I think it’s having a huge effect on young women. It’s creating confusion within them as far as their self-worth. When they see rappers looking at the girls like ‘Ooh you hot, ma’ they think that’s what they need to do to be hot. I want them to know you don’t have to be half naked to be beautiful. I tell them it’s hotter to have an incredible brain. It’s much hotter to be able to hold a conversation with anybody, any age, any color.” Just being her beautiful, intelligent and talented self, Regina King is a shining example of that truth.