Queen Latifah stars as Motormouth Maybelle in the 2007 version of John Waters' movie musical, Hairspray. Her co-stars include Hollywood veterans John Travolta, Christopher Walken and Michelle Pfeiffer as well as a batch of popular young actors including Brittany Snow, Amanda Bynes and Zac Efron (High School Musical). While her more mature co-stars had nothing but sweet things to say about working with Queen Latifah, her younger Hairspray cohorts were even more effusive in praising the Academy Award nominated rapper-turned-actress.
Elijah Kelley plays her son in the movie and he couldn’t have been more pleased with the casting. “That was the best and coolest thing, you know what I’m saying? She’s like really, really like the big homey now,” joked Kelley. “During the movie she was just so influential in the way I viewed all the racial situations and just how I played my character. Her biggest thing was to me to just be yourself and pull through your own personal values because she’s been around since – doing music, writing hip hop music and doing urban movies like House Party. She had her own show and Chicago, which she got nominated for an Oscar, and through all of that her career has escalated but her personality has been a constant great thing. I think that’s one of the things I took from her.”
The Appeal of Hairspray: “I just had to be in this movie,” said Queen Latifah. “I just had to. It was [producers] Neil [Meron] and Craig [Zadan]. I worked with them in Chicago. They've done this so many times and they do it well. And [director] Adam Shankman, Adam is my boy. We worked together on Bringing Down the House so I knew what he would be bringing to the table, and it was John [Travolta]. I felt comfortable with the team, that even though there was no script, I saw the original movie, I knew what the play was about. I knew they were going to do right by me because why else would they want me in it? They knew who they're getting so I kind of trusted in that.”
Working with Michelle Pfeiffer: The two have an adversarial relationship in the film and although they may have fought onscreen, the two women really respect each other. Queen Latifah said it was never uncomfortable working with Pfeiffer, no matter how personal things appeared to get. “If you don't commit to it and jump into it, and just go full out on it, then it's not only going to be a bad performance but it's not going to really get the point across of how ridiculous things like size-ism and racism are,” explained Queen Latifah. “So yeah, she had to be the great villain. Velma Von Tussle, what a good name. I think she was amazing and she's so not like that in real life that it was funny. She's so sweet and giving in real life and sensitive, even so like for her to play this role, I thought she rocked it too.”
Speaking of Size-ism and Racism...: Movies can get across messages that are sometimes harder to sell in books or newspaper articles. “One of the things, when we talk about the racism, when we talk about the sizeism, but I relate to the confidence that Motormouth tries to get people to feel confidence. She has to be a pretty confident woman to own this record store, to be a host on TV, to have all these kids think that she's actually cool enough to hang out with. And to encourage Edna to just be herself. ‘It's all right, girl, just be you, do you.’ I think a lot of people make bad decisions when they don't have high confidence. When their self-esteem is low, they're willing to tolerate stuff that they shouldn't. Women will stay in an abusive relationship when they have low self-esteem. A man will create one when he has low self-esteem. A lot of what happens, a lot of the ills of the world probably have a lot to do with how a person feels about themselves on the inside. So I think Hairspray is one of those movies that kind of bring a little bit of attention to that and try to get people to step out and be confident about themselves. ‘Don't give up. Try. It's okay. They might close that door today but another one will open. Just keep moving forward.’”
Keeping a Straight Face: It wasn’t always easy for the stars of Hairspray to keep it together. “[Michelle] would be losing it. She has to do all these takes where she's just like, ‘Ugghhh!,’ things like that and it was just funny. How many ways can you do it? She's doing different ways every time. She just made me laugh. It's funny. It's a comedy so I'm like trying not to laugh at some of the stuff that was really funny. John kind of made me laugh a lot too. He's funny.”
John Travolta Pays a Compliment: When told her Hairspray co-star John Travolta compared her to Oprah, Queen Latifah responded, “Nice, that's a good comparison. I can work with that. He said that to me one day. I just thought it was the cutest thing. He's all right. He's a good guy.”
Bouncing Between '60s Tunes and Her Own Style of Music: Queen Latifah joked about how easy it is for her to go between different types of music. “Yeah, because I'm actually not human. I'm a time jumper from planet Elam. Yeah, I like music. It can be from whatever era. It's just something that beats within me, so going back and forth between different types of music… I watched a lot of musicals growing up. I practiced that kind of singing. I didn't really know what to do with it. I lived in Newark, I mean, what the hell was I going to do? It wasn't like I was going to perform much of that. I mean, we did our school plays. That was about the only chance to get to sing songs like that, but now it's all paying off because here come the musicals again and I get a chance to have some fun with a lot of these songs.”
