Living the Dream

As Dreamgirls prepared to light up our screens this week, I took the opportunity to meet some of the cast, and get their take on the movie which recently received 8 Oscar nominations..

Jennifer Hudson (Effie White)
Did you look at specific singers when you were researching the part ?
Florence Ballard was definitely one of the people I looked at, but I feel that Effie’s story and I guess the Dreams story in itself is a bit of everybody’s story. As for the music I looked at Aretha, I looked at Whitney and Jennifer Holliday, and I tried to tribute all of the great female vocalists in almost every song that I did.

[On the Oscar nominations] How do you feeling about getting that level of recognition on your first film?
It’s something that was totally unexpected. Last year at this time I was just trying to get my lines right. So it’s an honour just to be a part of the Awards season, just to hear my name mentioned in that is enough.

Jennifer Holliday really made the role of Effie her own on stage. Did you feel any trepidation filling her shoes?
Oh definitely, that was the most intimidating part to think that I had to go behind Miss Holliday. But I had to realise that I needed to create my own Effie just the same as she created her own. Once I got past that I was like phew, I can do this.

Bill Condon (Director)
Is Diana Ross happy or unhappy?
The fact is it’s not her story. And I think basically she understands that Dreamgirls was always a highly fictionalised version of real events, you know it isn’t her life, it’s her right to tell that story. It’s a tribute to her as an icon and frankly as a pioneer. She changed the world you know, so I hope she takes it in that spirit when she does see it.

Did you have to persuade Beyonce to take on the role, or did she come to you?
Beyonce did come to us. We met and I loved her, but I still had two questions one was that it was a level of acting she’d never attempted before, but more than that, for someone who has such a well developed stage persona, could she adapt to something which was so different? Take the way she is sexually on stage, she’s so powerful and so contemporary, and this was about something so different, about withholding and a certain kind of sixties sexuality. So she volunteered to audition, and we didn’t even have to see anybody else.

Did she actually go out and get a specific outfit to wear?
She did, she went out the night before and got this incredible kind of Marilyn Monroe dress, and she did the title number with piano. You’d think she’d do Diana Ross and she had a little bit of that, but she had a lot of Marilyn. She understood that Deena at that point was going to try and imitate the white sex goddesses of the period, you know, it was really very inventive her audition.

Anika Noni Rose (Lorrell Robinson)
One of the many things to admire in the film was Eddie Murphy’s performance. What it was like to work with him?
What people don’t know is that he is very still and very subdued and so working with him you’re not working with somebody who is constantly trying to make you laugh, you’re working with somebody who when they say ‘action’ will give you the most amazing performance, and is so totally open to whatever it is that you’re giving him. What he has done in this film, I think, is open up a brand new avenue of performance for himself. I don’t think that people were really prepared to see him do something like that.

The movie is essentially about people being pushed in various directions. Are there still Svengalis around in the movie business?
I think so, if you allow yourself to be susceptible to that. I think it’s up to you to decide how far you will go and to know what it is that is out of your comfort zone, and what you want. Agents will try and type cast you, and that’s not something that I want to be. I’m the type that is needed at the time that it needs to be there. And I think it’s important to make those choices. For some people it works to be a type to be in that box, but for me I choose to make my own path. And I’ve been lucky enough to have some great people to help me walk it.

There’s been some criticism that there’s not been many strong positive African American movies in America, especially with strong female role models. How do you feel to be part of quite a historic cinematic moment?
I am very proud and honoured to be a part of this project, and to be a part of something so positive and yet honest. There’s ugliness in it, but it’s not taking you to that stereotypical place that says all we can do is shoot each other and shoot up drugs. It’s the other story, showing us in glamour mode, because we do that too. It’s a really wonderful feeling to have young people come up to me and be excited about this, and send me messages telling me I want to do what you do, this movie has made such a difference in my life. When that type of thing comes to you and you realise that you have touched somebody in that way, and allowed them to see something else of themselves, that is the most amazing and fulfilling thing ever.

Danny Glover (Marty Madison)
What was it like working on this film?
One of the reasons that this film is so important is that they say that black films don’t sell, and we want to use this as a platform to prove them wrong. We want to use this extraordinary film, this extraordinary talent that you’re going to see, to show that they do sell. The key is to have a story that touches people’s hearts, a story that has a level of universality in it, that people want to come and see, and then maybe we can change that paradigm.