The CultureMap Interview
Houston's Loretta Devine powers For Colored Girls, tells off Janet Jackson
Loretta Devine
The cast of For Colored Girls
Colored Girls is the rare movie that focuses on women.
This weekend marks the opening of the rarest of films: A drama about African-American women. For Colored Girls has earned praise for director Tyler Perry and for its standout cast, which includes Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Whoopi Goldberg, Kerry Washington and Houston's own Loretta Devine.
CultureMap's caught up with Devine at Hotel ZaZa to discuss Tyler Perry, Janet Jackson and the serious themes of the film.
CultureMap: It surprised a lot of people when Tyler Perry picked up the rights for the movie. What was it like working with him?
Loretta Devine: This movie was my first time working with him, he's a very giving director. One thing I like about him is that he doesn't do too many takes, you hit it and quit it. It was just a great experience. And then to get a chance to work with all these incredible women was just like dreaming. You never think you'll get a chance to do something like this.
CM: You've had a great stage career, and For Colored Girls began as a play in 1975. How is it different playing it on the screen?
LD: Some people said that the poetry jarred them, that is was so distinctly different in style, but I thought he did a great job of putting the two entities together. He had to create characters for a movie that had a life and so the portrait was embodied inside the life. It wasn't hard or anything, I'm just talking, you know.
I had two of the best poems, I thought, so it was really easy to deliver. "Someone Ran Off With All My Stuff," that's a great poem.
CM: Your character, Juanita, is such a support for so many of the other women in the movie but she can't seem to get her own relationships issues worked out. Why do you think that is?
LD: I think that's typical of a lot of women, you know, that "Do as I say, not as I do." I think that sort of sums her up in a nutshell. I think in her head she has an idea of the kind of man she wants him to be. She knows he's not that, I think she's just afraid of change, she's afraid of stepping out on her own, of letting go of him because she's afraid she's not going to get anybody else.
I think that's a common fear for a lot of women so they end up in horrible relationships, wasting their time and their lives, and I think that's what her character shows until she just has to stop.
You talk to different women, and one young girl said to me "I just think it's silly that she would go and look for his clothes in the closet," but a lot of women do stuff like that. They check their text messages, they do all kinds of things because they're scared. She's a woman that's really afraid to start over on her own.
I always say if something happened to my old man — and no one says old man anymore — I'm not going through finding nothing. I would just go, "Thank you, God, for the time I had," and I don't think I'd try to date again. Dating just seems impossible to me. It just seems so hard.
CM: It's so rare to see a female-driven movie like this, especially one that addresses some hard issues. Do you think this fills a needed void?
LD: One thing that is great about it is that it's a women's movie, it's about women, and the more things we can get about women and for women and with women in it, it's just a positive thing. Also you want to go to a movie where you can feel things, where you can release some things, where you can identify with things, and I think that women will be able to do that with this movie. It's a movie you can go to with your girlfriends and afterwards go and talk about it.
I think women can relate. They say "I know someone who's going through that," or "Oh my god, there it is."
And for young girls, nobody even tells you about date rape, I think most girls don't even know what it is until it happens. No one talks about it. No one tells you, "This is what can happen sometimes with a friend, and these are the consequences of it." The movie opens that up for discussion too, and I think that's good.
CM: What was it like working on set with so many great actresses?
LD: I knew most all the girls, I had worked with most of them before and I had watched a lot of them. We all watch each other and root for each other, and say "Oooh, she got that part I wanted!"
No, I'm just kidding. I did just about all my scenes with Janet Jackson, like the scene where I'm telling her off, I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm telling off Janet Jackson! She's gonna hate me!" But that's not Janet. That was a great day, that was fun. She was supposed to be playing this mean, mean lady and she would just look at me hard and then she would giggle, she couldn't keep her mean face.
She was wonderful, though. Everybody would get together between takes and laugh and talk about what's happening in the world.
CM: And I hear you're from Houston. Do you make it back a lot?
LD: Yes, this is home. I generally only get to come home for holidays and funerals though, because I'm usually off somewhere working. When I'm here I'm something of a recluse though.
