Mariah Carey Connection

MARIAH Carey has revealed how she drew on her hell with her ex-husband for her explosive role in the acclaimed new movie Precious.

In an exclusive interview, the megastar, 39, revealed she poured the torment of her broken marriage into playing a dowdy social worker who saves a troubled teenager from a terrible home life.

But it was Mariah’s own turbulent upbringing - in a broken home with a sister who turned to prostitution - that made her accept the part initially.

Tapping into those dark experiences sharpened her performance, and has led to a string of gong nominations, including a Screen Actors Guild award.

Escape
But there is no crowing from the legendary diva when she talks about the film and her reasons for doing it.

Speaking about her first husband, the record producer Tommy Mottola, she shivers: “It was an abusive relationship emotionally and in several different ways.

“At first, music was my escape. But as time went on, different friends and different people would help me to see I could get out of that relationship.

“That’s in the past, but it helped me get to a place where I could grow and use all that stuff. I look forward to acting more to be able to use all of those things.”

Mariah - who says she has another acting role in the pipeline - was 23 when she wed a 43-year-old Mottola in 1993. They split up four years later and she is now now happily married to actor Nick Cannon.

But you have to look further back to understand why the usually dolled- up-to-the nines Mariah embraced the role of the plain and hard-working Mrs Weiss in Precious. As a kid, Mariah had it tough. Her white mum Patricia was disowned by her family for marrying a black man.

Then the marriage ended when Mariah was just three, and her mum ended up working late shifts at nightclubs to make ends meet.

A few years later Mariah’s older sister Alison got pregnant at 15 and moved out of home. She later became a drug addict and turned to prostitution to support her habit.

When her second child was born, Alison was infected with HIV, and has been living with Aids for nearly 15 years - a disease that features in Mariah’s new film.

The singer can’t talk about her sister for legal reasons but admits her upbringing had a lot of bearing on how she played Mrs Weiss.

“Most people think that I was born in this magical bubble and here I am singing high notes - it wasn’t like that,” Mariah says. “So yeah. I do know people who have been through some deep s***.”

She goes on: “Precious has been ignored her whole life for the abuse she went through. All of us have had a little bit of a slice of what that tastes like.

“I come from a unique background. In my father’s family there were a lot of troubled uncles and aunts and people who were literally in very intense situations that I couldn’t even go into now.

“But yeah, I’ve met people who have gone through similar things.

“And I myself have been through things that I could draw on in terms of being able to sympathise with her character.”

Mariah was given the role just two days before starting shooting - when Dame Helen Mirren dropped out.

And she had to go through a total de-glam, which didn’t come naturally to her. The only make-up she was allowed to wear was dark shadow under her eyes and on her upper lip, to give her a “miss-tache”.

Mariah giggles: “If I’d have stood out as, ‘Here I am, a well-known person even looking remotely glamorous,’ it would have taken away from the whole essence of what the film is.

“It was tough, honestly, because I am so used to the music world, which is so different with the cameras, the lighting, the angles and this and that.

“We were in fluorescent dentist office lighting. It was, like, the worst-lit scene of the movie on purpose. Lee (Daniels, the director) caught me trying to put blush on and said, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘Precious has blush on!’ He was not going for it.

“I guess I’ll feel better about it when I am just normal at my house, walking past the mirror without make-up on. I’ll be like, ‘Well, I looked worse then!’”

Terrible
Lee also banished Mariah’s entourage from set and ordered her to change the way she walked.

She explains: “Obviously I walk around on my tiptoes when I’ve got on my four-inch heels. Even if I took them off, I’d still be walking on my tiptoes.

“He was like, ‘You’re up here - can we bring it down here?’ So all of the little manners that people might know me for, they had to be thrown out the window.” After shooting had finished, did she go back to her old ways? “Yeah, I had to,” she groans.

But taking off her make-up for even a short time was a big step for Mariah who has issues over her appearance.

She explains: “I remember starting out and being at a record company at 19 and having someone tell me, ‘This is your good side and this is your bad side. Don’t ever let anyone take any pictures of you from that side. You look terrible from that side.’ And so on.

“I created this whole complex - like I didn’t already have enough of a complex!”

And it doesn’t help that the big 4-0 is looming in March.

At the mere mention of the word forty, Mariah snaps: “No, darling - don’t say the F-word around me!”

Precious is in cinemas now.

Source: The News of the World