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How did Queen Latifah become involved as the narrator of Artic Tale?
“We always knew from the beginning because walrus society is a matriarchal society and this whole story that we were developing of this maternal investment, we knew we wanted a woman to tell the story. We also wanted, because the movie has a heavy message, we wanted to break the film up so we were looking at comedic actresses, believe it or not, and Queen Latifah was always sort of first on the list. She’s got an alto voice that has that gravitas to handle the vastness of the Arctic, but she also has that intimacy. When the film gets a little tragic, she has that quiet, strong voice. She has a great ability with humor to sort of spice up the film. We directed her as Mother Ice. She’s all-knowing; she knows these characters intimately. I think as an audience member, you feel like she’s talking right to you.”
How quickly did she sign on?
“She signed on once we proposed this to her. She signed on right away. She was a great professional. She did this whole thing in one day. She belted it out. She knew exactly what to do. She was great.”
Is there one specific thing you learned from this experience that changed your life?
“When I first went to the Arctic, I wasn’t much of a camper. I had been trained as an underwater cameraman, but I was working off of boats. I knew boats. We had cabins to sleep in or we’d be in hotels. But with this, you really had to go out into the environment and live. The one thing I think I’ve learned was by spending time with the Inuit people, it has nothing to do with filming, it’s just how to survive in the wintertime. We went tracking polar bears over a thousand times. We would live in an igloo. We’d have to build an igloo. It takes about four hours to build an igloo big enough for two men to sleep in and so you’d have to build an igloo and then you’d have to move on two days later. How to track bears by their footprints…how to tell how fresh they are. The whole experience of living on the land has been incredibly rewarding.”
After living in that environment how difficult was it for you to adjust to being back in crowded cities and around lots of people?
“I kind of like both. I like being alone, remote, in the middle of nowhere and waiting and waiting. Seeing amazing things with animals. But I’m a walrus. I like herds. I like to be social. I love going to New York City and being in a mass of people and just to have that for a little while. I don’t want it for too long so it’s nice to kind of move in and out of. It’s always a shock both ways when you come from the city and you go back into the wild, or you go from the wild and come out into the city.”
What’s your next project?
“I want to continue making these sorts of natural history films with a narrative construct - the drama, this new genre of films. I think I’m very interested in the knowledge that we’ve lost our ability to subsist off the oceans. I have this ocean survival film that involves two divers - two blue water hunters - that are extremely wise about the ocean and skilled. With spearguns they can survive out in the middle of nowhere.”
