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Common and Queen Latifah were in New York recently to promote their new movie Just Wright, which hits theaters this week (May 14). RadioPlanet.tv sat in on a roundtable with a few of the top radio stations in the country to get some behind-the-scenes scoop from the movie, upcoming albums for the two crossover stars and more!
COMMON
Since you and Queen Latifah come from a musical background, do you think that contributed to your chemistry in the movie?
Common: I definitely feel that helped us understand each other a little more, but I really believe Latifah and I have a great connection. Some things are God given, I feel that we both have a certain sincerity about us and that we understand each other beyond Hip Hop. Certain things she’s interested in that I’m interested in, and she’s just a beautiful person so it’s hard not to connect with her, and I just wanted to make sure that I could come in a good creative place and be natural with it.
Recall the story of your first time meeting [Latifah], and she had no idea who Common was…
Common: I was here from Chicago for the New Music Seminar with my guys and I was an unsigned artist, we were walking around and we saw a lot of different artists we admired and loved. We had a video camera and we were looking all around like “Man that’s KRS-One, that’s Monie Love” – and then we came across Queen Latifah, we asked if she would say something on camera and she did. She was just very nice, and was one of the only artists who did it.
I still have the video tape to this day, she would never remember it unless I showed her the tape, but it was one of those moments where you meet someone and it always sticks in your mind that they were cool when you met them. I had already admired her from her music, so it was just a good thing from seeing her being the sweet individual she was then, to even sweeter now. She’s just a beautiful woman.
What kind of experience do you have dealing with women like Morgan [Paula Patton] in the movie?
Common: My thing is most of the groupie experiences that I have, the girls try to come on a conscious tip towards me, the way Morgan was smart and found an angle that might get [my character] Scott by talking about charity work. You have women that will find out what you’re about or get the image from what they see you portraying and they come to you on that angle. But my whole perspective is, I try to be respectful to these women, and at the end of the day if it’s someone I don’t want in my circle, I know how to give them the stiff arm and keep them at that level, but I will still be respectful.
Was there anything you picked up from Denzel Washington in American Gangster that helped you with this leading role?
Common: I sat and watched a lot from Denzel just by his example. One of the things I learned most is he was very natural and open to trying different things. Also, I like how he conducted himself on set. There was a time when someone was moving some lights across and bumping this young lady’s head. Denzel was like, “Sir you need to say excuse me to this lady”, he basically checked him in a respectful way, and I learned to do that myself if I need to. I try to hold my position on set and be natural.
This is your first leading man role, where do you want to go from here? Do you want to stay there?
Common: My goal is to be a leading man and continue to have leading roles, but more than anything I want to do great roles. If it’s a supporting role and it’s only 10 minutes like the role Viola Davis had in Doubt where you could really do something with it. I’m open to just doing good character work and roles that allow me to do something with them. I want to do a lot of genres, from drama to love stories, action and comedies. I wouldn’t want to do horror though, I don’t like scary movies.
Tell us about your new album The Believer.
Common: I’m working on it now… it’s me, No I.D., Kanye West and Twilite Tone. This album is Hip Hop and boom bap, and I just wanna make music that people are inspired by. It’s definitely gonna be that raw sounding Hip Hop that’s soulful and good music. We’re looking at it coming out this fall.
Can we look for you to be producing movies as well?
Common: Yeah, that’s definitely one thing I want to get into, producing and writing films. Being around Latifah you see that she can do it all, she can rap, do jazz music very well, get Oscar nominated performances, and produce films. I’m inspired by her and people like Will Smith, my goal is to get into production and get Oscar nominations.
As a rapper you’re performing your words, as an actor you’re performing someone else’s words, how does that change your approach?
Common: When you’re an actor, you have to realize you’re a piece of the puzzle and that you have to be a team player, because a script is written and it describes a character in a certain way. You have to fit into the scheme of that and into the vision of what the director has for the film, and you have to let go. When you’re an actor you have to relinquish power, because there’s time where you may want to do a take over and the director is moving on.
You don’t have the power as a writer, but as a solo artist I could do 30 takes in the studio and change the beat if I wanted to. I’m the director when I’m making albums. Acting is a good lesson for me in humility for me. I go on auditions and they don’t care that I’m Common. I’m going in there, signing a list, trying to break the nerves and do a great job so that I can get the role.
How is [Kanye West] doing, and how is his music coming along?
Common: He’s making some stuff that’s good, the music he’s making makes me say “this is real music right here”. I’m excited for him and I think it’s gonna be a great time for Kanye.
Phylicia Rashad plays your mother in this movie, how was it working with her and Pam Grier?
Common: When you think about it, this is a beautiful woman’s movie. You got Queen Latifah, Paula Patton, Phylicia Rashad, and Pam Grier. Working with Phylicia Rashad was like working with my mother, I grew up watching the Huxtables [on The Cosby Show]. Once I got over my heart beating and was just cool with everything, we had that mother and son relationship.
QUEEN LATIFAH
Do you think you and Common’s rap background contributed to the chemistry in this movie?
Queen Latifah: I think the fact that we are rappers-turned-actors makes a difference because it makes us able to relate as friends and professionals. It applies for sure to his character, some scenes I’ll pump his head up like, “You’re Common, girls throw themselves at you” because he’s so humble and kind. Sometimes you have to be cocky a little bit to get there. He really thinks he’s in the NBA now! [laughs]
You guys started six years ago on this movie and it was like your baby, why did it take so long?
Queen Latifah: It was crazy, we came up with this concept and partnered with Debra Martin-Chase [producer of The Princess Diaries, Courage Under Fire, The Pelican Brief, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants]Â to do this over at Disney,and Mike Elliott [Brown Sugar] wrote a great script. The first draft of it was good, it just needed a punch, and this film actually got greenlit twice at Disney. Then there was a budget issue, then a regime change and all of these different things happening that made it fall through and go back.
We took the script back and shopped it to Fox Searchlight and they were ready to do it, so that was where it happened and it was then back to getting the budget right. I was like, “We gotta hurry up and make this movie before I’m not quite sexy enough to make said movie.” [laughs] We got it done and sometimes it takes a little longer than expected.
How have you been able to transition as a businesswoman and do so many things in your career? You’ve broken through whatever glass ceiling there was.
Queen Latifah: First I cut my head because I didn’t even see the damn ceiling. It was glass and clean, I’m like a bird who pushed up through the window. I never saw ceilings, boxes and boundaries. My partner Shakim and I have never functioned like that, that’s part of the reason we’ve never taken jobs. Each of us could have gotten jobs at labels, went in-house and got the expense accounts and travel budgets, but to go there is to be trapped and our brains were too big.
We knew that about ourselves as teenagers, our whole Flavor Unit crew always stood outside the box, but particularly Shakim and I and a couple of others thought business-minded. We were always business-oriented, and our business was creative. People think it’s mutually exclusive, but it’s not. You can be very creative at business and creative artistically, and they can meet and be counterparts.
Talk about the importance of the music in the film and where your career is headed.
Queen Latifah: The music was important. [Common's character] Scott loves jazz and so does [my character] Leslie. It was important to have that component, there’s nobody better than Terence Blanchard. To have him be a part of our film is not just an ode to him, but it’s a little bit of a ‘Spike Lee thank you’. He really knows what to do with a film, he brings a certain element and makes it special. Common and I both love jazz anyway, irrespective of our characters, having him love jazz in the movie said that he wasn’t just this one-dimensional guy.
If he listens to John Coltrane and Miles Davis, that gives him a certain temperament and speed at which he can move. It makes him more round and complete as a person, and you dont just look at him as some average guy. You get why he could not just fall for a gorgeous girl like Morgan [Paula Patton] who sweeps him off of his feet, but how he could also fall for Leslie who is everything he wants in a woman and such a good friend in certain ways, you get the whole conflict
With my music, I’m going into the studio in about two to three weeks to record a live version of the next album, which I’ve really been wanting to do. I didn’t want to just do standards and have them go in and make music with me laying my tracks over it. I really want to achieve what we do when we perform live, we take all these songs and do them live with a whole different vibe. I’m trying to capture that on this third jazz album, and I’m very excited about that.
Will you be doing anymore Hip Hop?
Queen Latifah: I had the Persona album out last August – I don’t limit myself with music. If I feel like doing a rock record, I’m gonna make it. If I want to make a jazz record I’m gonna make it. I’m gonna make whatever music is in my heart, and I wont be limited to genres. I’m gonna make whatever feels good to me at that time and I’m true to what I do. If I spit a rhyme on something, then I’m rhyming. If I want to sing a ballad or some jazz then I’m gonna do that. That’s how it goes.
By: Dove ~Sheepish Lordess of Chaos~
*questions contributed by various participants in Fox Searchlight roundtable discussion
