Queen Latifah on playing "Bessie"
In her latest role, Queen Latifah adopts the persona of a 20th century legend. Our Mark Strassmann met up with her for some Questions-and-Answers:
At 45, Queen Latifah is playing a part she was first offered when she was 22.
When she first got the script, she told Strassmann, "I didn't know who Bessie Smith was. I had to go do some homework. And I did. When I listened to her music, I was initially intimidated."
But Latifah has evolved as a performer over two decades, from hip hop artist and producer, to movie star in films like "Jungle Fever" and "The Secret Life of Bees."
She also lived a lot along the way -- enough to understand, now, who Bessie Smith really was.
"She had so much power," she said. "Power in her fist. Power in her heart. Power in her body, her soul."
"I do admire her. I mean, I relate to her in a lot of ways. I've lived her life in a lot of ways."
PLAYLIST: Hear selected tracks performed by legendary blues vocalist Bessie Smith by clicking on the player below. "Bessie" debuts on HBO May 16th.
Bessie Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and '30s. She starred in vaudeville, then signed with Columbia Records in 1923. She was highest-paid black performer of her day.
But her marriage was stormy. She battled the bottle. She had affairs with both men and women.
In 1937, Smith died after a car accident. She was 43. But you hear her lasting influence in performers like Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin.
"I wish I was there to just see one of her shows, to be way in the back and just have a little ticket into that audience and just watch her just blow this place out," said Latifah.
"What emotions do you hear in Bessie Smith's voice?" asked Strassmann.
"I hear pain," she said. "I hear love. I hear sadness. I hear, f*** it, irreverence. Excuse my language! But that's really what I hear, is really devil-may-care. I hear a rough day. I hear a good day, you know. I can hear when she probably had a good night the night before."
"If there's a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning, you hear 'em both?"
"Most of the time, yeah, I hear all those things!" Latifah laughed.
Shakim Compere has been Latifah's business partner from Day One. They met during high school in Irvington, New Jersey. Compere says, like Bessie, Latifah has always been tough.
"She was a guy's girl, right?" said Compere. "She was the girl that demanded respect from the men -- and men liked that. She didn't let you get away with anything. I mean, she was one woman hanging out with, like, ten guys."
And nobody messed with her.
As performers, both Latifah and Bessie had to stand their ground.
"You know, I hit racist stuff," said Latifah. "It was almost ridiculous. I felt like I had to be a spokesperson for black people. We had a show, and we stayed at this hotel. And, you know, we went to swim in the hotel. And my DJ got in the pool. And this woman got out the pool. It just wasn't happening, you know? She wasn't getting in the pool with a black man."
The movie shows Bessie Smith performing before a segregated audience -- whites sit in the orchestra, blacks in the balcony.
Strassmann asked, "What was it like to walk out on stage and come face-to-face with that?"
"Whenever I play a scene where there's racial components like that, where there's segregation, divisiveness, it's always difficult," she replied. "Because this is not just a role. People have actually lived this. And even though it's a musical, this really happened."
Take the "paper bag test" -- this was an era that wanted black performers, just not too black. They had to be lighter than a brown paper bag.
"Every racist scene is hard to do, 'cause they're not just scenes; they're real life," she said.
But Bessie Smith's real demon may well have been loneliness. In the movie, she's seen quite literally baring her soul, confronting herself in the mirror.
"She's got the outfits, the shoes. People adore her," said Latifah. "But she comes home to the people she wants to come home to and there's no one there, strip it all down, you know? Take it all away. And it's still Bessie and Bessie."
"Two of you would have been friends?"
"Oh, we woulda, yeah. I've ran into a few Bessies through the years. And I think my mom and everybody in my life, uh-huh!
"I'm pretty sure I would have connected with Bessie and people would have been sitting me down every night for a lecture on why we shouldn't have done that - it would have been that kind of thing."
To watch a trailer for the film "Bessie," click on the video player below.
For more info:
- Follow Queen Latifah on Twitter (@iamqueenlatifah)
- "Bessie" (HBO) - Debuts May 16
- "Bessie: Music from the HBO Film" via iTunes