Mariah Carey Connection

Since it made its premiere this past January at the Sundance Film Festival, few films have been as acclaimed or talked about than Precious. Based on the bestselling book, Push, by Sapphire, the film relates the tale of Precious, an overweight, unloved, pregnant, abused teen living a horrific existence and her painful and uplifting journey to self acceptance and love.

Precious is the second film to be directed by Lee Daniels, a former talent manager turned filmmaker.

After a talent search for months to find the perfect person to play Precious, Daniels discovered Gabourey Sidibe, a 24-year old college student and receptionist from Harlem with very little previous acting experience. Just last week we had a chance to talk to Daniels and Sidibe about her experience working on the film, why Daniels decided to direct such a difficult story and why he loves to make controversial films.

EBONY (to Daniels): You had a very successful career first as a talent manager then as a producer making films like Monster’s Ball and The Woodsman. Why did you decide to move into directing? There aren’t many film producers who have done that. Perhaps some creative urge that wasn’t being fulfilled?

DANIELS: I started out as a director in theater, which led me to casting, which led me to managing actors, which led me then to producing, which then led to directing. I’ve just come full circle. So people know me for my producing work, but I started out in theater. I had a life before Monster’s Ball.

EBONY: But why the choice to direct Precious yourself instead of doing the obvious and getting a black female director like, for example, Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust) or Gina Prince Bythewood (Love and Basketball, The Secret Life of Bees) to direct?

DANIELS: I always like to take a fresh approach and a different approach to whatever material that I attack. With Monster’s Ball, for example, I chose not an African American, not a white American but a non-American (German/Swiss director Marc Forster) to tell that story of racism because he would tell it from a very childlike perspective, a naïve perspective. With The Woodsman, through the eyes of a pedophile, I sought out a woman (director Nicole Kassell) to tell the story because I knew she would have a naïve and innocent perspective and view on this male pedophile.

For me and Precious, I love women and I thought that if I were to have a woman tell the story then the story would be told in a specific way and not from the viewpoint I wanted. And I think that I handled it differently than how a woman would have.

EBONY: So let me trap you in a corner. If a woman had directed it what would it have been like?

DANIELS: It would have been a very different movie, but it could have been a good movie too. But it wouldn’t have been the movie that I wanted to see. I wanted my vision executed.

EBONY: (to Sidibe) You had practically no experience acting and here you are playing the lead in a major motion picture. The film’s success to glory or total complete failure rested on your shoulders, so did you feel any extra pressure while making the film?

SIDIBE: (Laughs) Wow! I hadn’t thought of it in that way…

DANIELS (to Sergio): (laughs) You’re hardcore!

SIDIBE: (laughs) I get it. I get it. Because I knew that essentially I was going to be in every single scene and I knew when I showed up on set the very first day of shooting I was scared and I was nervous. But when I stepped out of the car and I saw crewmen, the grips, the electricians and cameramen and all the 150 or 200 people involved all the nervousness faded away because I knew I felt very responsible for everyone’s paychecks. Because you’re responsible and you either have to sink or swim and I chose to swim.

EBONY: But even when you were making the film did you have any idea what kind of impact the film would have? How it would change your life?  For example you’ve been this year all over the world at major film festivals like Sundance, Cannes, San Sebastian, Toronto, New York, Vancouver, Glasgow, Chicago…

SIDIBE: Oh God, it certainly has blown out of my hands. It has definitely been a delightful surprise.

DANIELS: She’s my choco-latte with just a little bit, just a little bit of whipped cream on top.

EBONY (to Daniels): You like to cast musicians and singers in unlikely roles in your films like Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carey in Precious, Eve and Mos Def in The Woodsman, P. Diddy and Mos Def in Monster’s Ball. Why do you do that?

DANIELS: Just to upset you. (laughs) No just kidding!

EBONY: Could it be a subconscious marketing move in some way?

DANIELS: They’re friends and I like working with friends, you know? And maybe in the back of my head it is a marketing ploy. I don’t know. But I’m a producer right? I’m not going to deny that I’m a producer.  I can’t lie. Maybe on some subliminal level it is. But I like working with people that I can trust. I’ve been able to get performances out of people I can trust because they trust me.

EBONY: But with Mariah Carey for example, who is just excellent as the cynical social worker in Precious, you must have seen something in her that led you to believe that she could pull that role off…

DANIELS: Let me go back to trust and friends. It works both ways. You know that when you’re working with a friend you know that they are going to do whatever they can do to have your back. Mariah is a very good friend. I know she would have my back. I could shoot her anyway I wanted, that she would do whatever I told her to do and when you have people who have your back, that’s a director’s wet dream (laughs). For real! That’s just what’s up! But I only know that for sure I can only work with people that I love and can trust. Because I’m exposing myself. I’m exposing my soul.

EBONY: (to Sidibe) So what made you go to that audition and believe that you would get the part?  What made you believe you had a shot after he had seen 400 actresses for the role?

SIDIBE: I didn’t. I just wanted to try out. It was fate. I got the call and I thought it made more sense to go to school and I thought either I could go downtown to school or uptown to the audition. And American Gangster, the Denzel Washington film, was filming in my neighborhood on the downtown side of the street so production assistants made me cross over to the uptown side…

DANIELS: Shut up! (laughs)

SIDIBE: And because I ended up on the uptown side of the street I deiced to go the audition.

DANIELS: Life is weird Gabby.

SIDIBE: Yeah, life is really weird.

DANIELS: And then she comes into the office and gives this magnificent audition and then you know after seeing 400 girls for this part I’m done. And spent and if you’ve seen my films you know that I try to go for truth in most of the stuff that I do. I kept looking for Precious. I saw them. They’re working at McDonald’s and what not. They are Precious. So Gabby finishes the audition and all of sudden she’s busting out talking like this white chick from the Valley. And I figured if I had used a real Precious I would have been exploiting her. It would have been too much of the truth as opposed to using an actor who is smart to play her. Life is funny.

EBONY (to Sibide) And what is Lee like as a director?

DANIELS: I’m watching you…(laughs)

SIDIBE: Well I’m going to after this compare everybody to him from now on. He’s very paternal, very protective of me ,so I don’t see him as some kind of tyrant at all but he knows what he wants and I can go home at night as long as I give it to him. (laughs)

DANIELS: But I am a tyrant at times…

SIDIBE: But you were always really, really nice to me but he was a real tyrant in the editing room (laughs)

EBONY (to Daniels): From your previous work you love to make tough uncompromising hard films like Monster’s Ball, The Woodsman, Shadowboxer and now Precious. Have people ever told you to lighten up and make a comedy or a nice safe romantic love story?

DANIELS: My mother! My mother said to me after my second movie: “Hmmm…. Miss Maybelle from the church don’t understand. She says why don’t you do movies like Tyler Perry? Why don’t you do movies like Tyler Perry?” I said: ”Hey, why don’t you adopt Tyler Perry?” (laughs)  And God knows I never want her meet him. She’ll fawn all over him. I’ll be embarrassed I’m sure. But Tyler has come onboard this film so I’m sure she’ll appreciate this film. But you know as African Americans… we are so staved for truth. They call me this radical filmmaker. I’m not. I’m just telling my truth or unafraid to tell the truth. People who say why do you depict black women this way or that way or this depiction of African Americans in a particular light. I mean that is the reason why most HIV patients right now are African American women because of men on the DL and are lying and living in a place of untruth. The truth will set you free and how we’re depicted is truth. It’s all about telling the truth. What’s so hard about telling the truth? People don’t want to hear the truth. People say: “Uh oh, here’s comes Lee Daniels with one of his movies.” I don’t care. I believe in telling the truth.

EBONY (to Sidibe): What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from this whole experience so far?

SIDIBE: I’ve learned not to count myself out, because I didn’t see doing myself anything beyond being a receptionist. I didn’t. I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what I look like. My talent cannot be diminished by my looks.

Source: Ebony Jet | Thanks to Jerry