Queen Latifah interview, Secret Life of Bees

MoviesOnline had the pleasure of sitting down with Queen Latifah at the Toronto International Film Festival to talk about her new movie, “The Secret Life of Bees,” written for the screen and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood based upon the award-winning novel by Sue Monk Kidd. The film also stars Alicia Keys, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, and Sophie Okonedo, a powerhouse ensemble of women from the world of music and film.

“The Secret Life of Bees” is the touching story about the need for love, sisterhood and redemption that explores the undeniable desire for a sense of belonging and the often daunting journeys that we must navigate to achieve it. Set in South Carolina, the home of the intelligent and independent honeymaking Boatwright sisters (Latifah, Keys and Okonedo) is suddenly thrust into upheaval with the arrival of fourteen-year-old Lily Owens (Fanning) and her caretaker Rosaleen (Hudson). Surrounded by the unexpected comforts, grace and deep rooted spirituality Lily encounters in the Boatwright home, she soon forms a maternal bond with each of these women whose unique and special gifts help reconcile the loss of her mother. Through the strength and female empowerment that embodies the Boatwright sisters, Lily ultimately comes to the realization that sometimes you must leave home in order to find it.

Latifah plays August Boatwright, a loving matriarch who nurtures both her younger sisters and the two lost souls who come to her house in need of love.
A huge fan of the novel, she welcomed the opportunity to work on a film with
dignified and well-defined female African-American characters. “To be able to reach back in time and find this character to play was extremely interesting to me,” says the Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner. “These women are progressive, intelligent and educated. They own their property; they’re very loving and nurturing.”

Queen Latifah is a celebrated musician, television and film actress, label president, an author and entrepreneur. She has blossomed into a one-woman entertainment conglomerate and became the first hip hop artist to be crowned with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Here’s what she had to tell us about her new movie, “The Secret Life of Bees”:

Q: Can you tell us what about the movie and the character appealed to you?

Queen Queen Latifah: Oh, God. So many things. What about this movie and this character? Well, it was a good book, you know, first of all. You know I love the idea of this progressive family, do you know what I mean? Maybe they weren’t so progressive, maybe they were just I don’t know… in my mind, this was the kind of family that I wanted to be a part of showing, the kind of black family particularly. They’re females, they got their own business, they have their own land… respected in their community, despite all of the racial tension that of course existed at that time, and I think so often we see the heavy hand of racism, we see “Kill N*ggers!” and “Them crackers this” and all this, and you get all that anger and hatred and this clear side of it from that side, but you just don’t see the hey, people went about average every day life and they did their business and they got along until they met on this line of “You can’t sit at this counter” kind of thing, those kinds of things. I just saw August as being the kind of woman who people say, “Good morning, Miss Boatwright” and “Afternoon, Miss Boatwright, well how’s it going today? Well, how’s May?” ‘Cause this is the kind of South I grew up in, in Maryland, in Virginia, where my family is from, and I spent a good amount of time down there growing up. There’s a thing called Southern hospitality and there’s manners to this day that us Northerners have forgotten about, a lot of us, and you still get a “Ma’am” and a “Sir” and a “good morning” and a “thank you.” It’s just a little bit different and I think we see so much of the other side of it, especially portrayed in films and television that it’s nice to just see that there’s another side of that too. There’s just average life, people living life, you know, who have to confront change or some who don’t want things to change, and that’s the lines that they differ upon. That’s when it gets sticky. Does that make any sense? (laughs)

Q: Can you talk a little bit about learning about the bees?

Queen Latifah: Jesus Christ! 

Q: Your hands were not covered.

Queen Latifah: No, and you know it was very, very challenging I must say (laughs). I have the utmost respect for beekeepers, but you know what? It was really very challenging. I’ve done a lot of things in my career and I haven’t been afraid of a whole lot, but that it was like, “Woooo!” The day I had to shoot a lot of my bee scenes, it was cold, and bees don’t really like cold weather. They don’t like it when it’s cold outside, so they were a little bit irritated you know, and my suit wasn’t the most…  I’m supposed to be the one who’s used to all this, so I couldn’t get the most protection on my suit, and I’m wearing a shirt and my hands are exposed, and I’m trying to keep my hands from shaking so you guys didn’t see it when you’re watching the movie, like ‘Gee, her hands are shaking” (laughter) “She had that too much coffee this morning, that Boatwright woman!” But I mean, it was actually really interesting. It’s easy when you’ve got gloves on and you’re looking… I’m fascinated by that kind of stuff. I read Scientific American and I watch Discovery Channel and I’m just fascinated by nature and animals and insects period, so it was like that was cool but to have to take the gloves off and work free-hand and remember my lines, it required some work, it definitely did, and we didn’t have a lot of time to shoot this movie or rehearse for that matter, so I had to dig deep to do it, but it was really rewarding.

Q: And you didn’t get stung?

Queen Latifah: Nah, I didn’t get stung. It was a cool ‘cause thank God I’d been stung before, a bunch of times growing up, so I wasn’t worried that I was allergic to bee stings, so I didn’t have to worry about that part. I’m going to DIE if I get stung! (laughter)

Q: What did you do in bee school?

Queen Latifah: Well, there was a guy named Julian who brought the bees up, and we would look at the hives and see which bees did what and way down deep were usually the queens. I got good at recognizing the queens and the drones, the boys, who couldn’t wait to fly off and hopefully die for their love of the queen (laughter). But it’s really interesting, and the little larvae, they come out fully grown, the bees. They go in but they take care of ‘em and feed ‘em and all the pollen and all that stuff, you just learn everything about bees and how they’re operatin’ in these hives, and they feed ‘em extra honey and they keep ‘em going and keep ‘em energized, and that’s kinda interesting. I was fascinated by a bee coming out fully-grown, but still being a baby. So yeah, you learn about all that kind of stuff, and getting comfortable and why they check the hives, and what you’re looking for and seeing how the honey is made and everything.

Q: You’ve been very much a pioneer in the music world and rap in the ‘90s and you made a very fluid transition into acting which we don’t see very often. Did you have any advice for Jennifer (Hudson) and Alicia (Keyes) who were going through that right now? Did they come to you for any advice?

Queen Latifah: Not really. I tend to share whatever I know in general. I’ve never been a person to horde information for the sake of my own skin, you know what I mean? Not share so somebody doesn’t take your job, I’ve never had that kind of insecurity. I also had a management company, too, so we were always one of those companies that shared information with our artists. Whatever they wanted to know, as much as they wanted to know, they could know. If they didn’t want to deal with it, that’s our job anyway, to handle all this stuff. In owning a management company, you’re careful how you speak to other people’s clients, so I’m not coming in there like, “Hey, you can do better over here.” (laughter) But you know I share whatever I can. One thing, I definitely share as much as I can with Alicia. We’re probably the closest out of the whole group, because we’ve known each other the longest. Jennifer, we sat down to talk with her about management as well when she was looking for one with this whole thing, and she’s with JLM who are great friends of ours, and in good hands. But it’s really whatever I can share that you know. For me, it was more important to lead by example on this film, to be the big sister, to be the veteran, to be the matriarch, in the sense that this is really what I have to do in my role anyway, and I actually kind of felt like that with them around. Dakota, she’s an old soul, she’s older than all of us. She’s definitely been here before, and she’s just fun times, but anything they have a question about, they can know, but for me it was just important to be prepared and be present and be in that moment and be an actor right then and there. I’ll be Queen Latifah. Cut, we can be whatever, but when we’re there, we’re there, and to help them being there myself and being that example. But I talked to them about the challenges of wearing all those hats.

Q: I was thinking more about Jennifer, because she’s touring soon and has her first album…

Queen Latifah: That’s what I’m saying, that it’s important to have as much support as you can. For me, I had an acting coach with me on this particular movie. Sometimes I take my acting coach, Richie, with me not because I need him to teach me how to act, but because sometimes I have to shut the other mess off, you know what I mean? I’m wearing a lot of hats, and I may have a conference call at lunchtime that may have nothing to do with this movie, and it’ll take me in a completely different place, and I just need to come back right here, right now. This is where we are, this is what happened, this is what’s going on, and just to get back to that place, and that’s kind of always why I had ‘im. So he’s helpful in those ways and as long as they can just do those kinds of things, you know, have that support system then I think they’ll be fine. They have all the talent in the world and they got good people around, so I think they’ll be okay.

Q: What was the most difficult scene for you? You have almost two back-to-back moments, one where you (SPOILERS!) find May in the pool of the water which seems pretty intense and then when she dies there’s that beautiful scene where you and Alicia break into song. I was curious for you, what was the most difficult?

Queen Latifah: The most difficult scene for me was working through them damn bees! (laughter!) Crying? It was sad, I cried, but the bees, I kid you not. Working with those bees, remembering my lines, and just trying to be relaxed and comfortable and teach this little girl about the wonderful life of bees in the hive with no gloves, and you don’t want to smash one of them, because if you kill one of them, they release a scent that tells the other bees somebody killed one of us! Get her! (laughter) So you have to be very gentle and you have to do it quick, because it’s a movie. We don’t have all day. How much film can we blow on this? Honestly, that was the most challenging thing, just trying to be August and handle these bees at the same time.

Q: So you didn’t kill any bees?

Queen Latifah: No, I didn’t kill any bees, thank God. I was very gentle with the bees.

Q: So do the end credits say “No bees were injured in the making of this movie”?

Queen Latifah: I don’t think they’re gonna put that up there. We might have lost one or two. (laughter) Some of ‘em just died of old age, working very hard for that queen and just died, know what I mean? Gave up the ghost.

Q: What do you look for these days when you’re looking for a new project to do because you’ve done so many different projects? I just saw the “Life Support” movie you did for HBO which is so wonderful and I was wondering what is it that attracts you to a project?

Queen Latifah: Oh, boy. Um… you know, it depends. I’m always going to try different kinds of things. Sometimes it’s who’s involved with it. It’s always great to start with a great script, so it doesn’t matter if it’s a comedy or a romance or action movie, I usually like to do something different from one to the next, just because I tend to go bored easily in my little distracted mind. I can get bored doing the same thing over and over and over, so I tend to look for something different from one to the next, something that helps me stretch in a different way and something that’s pretty solid or just a quick rewrite away from being there. Then there’s who’s involved with it. It might be someone I just want to work with or it might be a really cool director that I think could pull something out of me that maybe I couldn’t pull out of myself, so I’m open to all those things. Of course, if it comes with a nice check that’s great, but there is a minimum, they all know it, but it doesn’t hinge upon just making a big check. It’s really about doing a good movie, wanting to make a good movie, because then I can keep making a bunch of ‘em if I keep doing good ones, so that’s how I figure. Yeah, so I just look for something interesting, something fun, something that I wouldn’t mind sinking my teeth into.

Q: Do you have anything else lined up yet?

Queen Latifah: I’m going to do this film called “Just Right” which is a romantic comedy, but we still haven’t cast anybody yet. I mean, we just had a meeting about it yesterday and it’s going to go pretty quick, because we already have the financing set up for it. We’re producing that, but we still have everything to do. Fox is going to distribute it, Fox Searchlight, so we still have to set up all the director and cast and all in the next two months, and hopefully, we can get it done this year. If not, then we’re gonna go early next year.

Q: Did you hear that John Waters did a treatment for “Hairspray 2”?

Queen Latifah: That’s what I heard.

Q: Are you in it?

Queen Latifah:  I don’t know. Craig sent me an Email, he sent a little blast out that there’s… “Don’t say anything but there’s a rewrite on the way.” I can’t imagine I wouldn’t be in it, but you never know.

Q: Are you up for going back?

Queen Latifah: Yeah, man, that was good times. (laughter) Musicals are good times. I live to do a musical, there’s nothing like it, no experience like that in the movie business. You don’t get to pull all those triggers at the same time doing anything else. Nothing pulls that from you. Dancing, acting and singing is like “Alright, I gotta fire on all cylinders right now” because that’s what it requires. It’s fun getting to exercise all those muscles.

Q: How come they never did a “Bringing Down the House” sequel because you and Steve had such a great thing in the first movie?

Queen Latifah: I know, aren’t they pretty stupid for not doing that? That made a lot of money, too! There was a sequel in the works and it just never materialized, and then Steve ended up doing back-to-back movies with the kids, he was doing so many of those things, those “Cheaper” movies, so he was just busy for the longest and then he was doing his own thing with the book that he made into a film (“Shopgirl”) so I don’t know what gives with that. But that was good times, that was fun. I loved working with those guys, I’d work with them anytime.

“The Secret Life of Bees” opens in theaters on October 17th.