Latifah’s still doing royally
So, Queen Latifah, what was the hardest thing about playing an HIV-positive wife and mother in HBO’s upcoming “Life Support”?
“The only challenge was trying to stay in character when you’ve got people driving past you on the street going, ‘Queen!’ ‘Do it Latifah!’ ‘That’s LATIFAH!’ ” she says of the on-location shoot in Brooklyn last year.
“Most people try to be respectful, but they’re excited to see you and they’re hitting you with the name or some record that you did, so that was the greatest challenge. Playing this character wasn’t.”
An HBO On Demand preview of “Life Support,” which will air March 10, is available beginning today.
To play Ana, a peer counselor at an AIDS facility in Brooklyn whose past drug addiction has put a strain on her family relationships, Latifah (nee Dana Owens) recalled the New York streets where she hung out as a teenager.
“I really felt like I really could relate to the characters, to the situations, a family disrupted by drug addiction. I could relate to that just in my own family,” she says.
“And redemption as well, having the second chance of really trying to repair those relationships after you feel like, ‘OK, I messed up, but I’m back on track and I really want to get things back to where they were.’ “
Until now, Latifah has gone mostly the laugh route, with a string of comedies (“Bringing Down the House,” “Taxi,” “Barbershop 2: Back in Business” and “Last Holiday”).
“I’ve always enjoyed dramatic roles,” says Latifah, who turns 37 in March. “I mean, that’s what actually made me really want to get into acting, was me playing this role in high school in ‘Godspell.’ …
“That show, carrying the body of Jesus down the center aisle of the auditorium, crying and singing this song, it just always let me know that I kind of enjoyed that. But I just had a big sense of humor, so playing the comedies is all fun.”
The good times will roll later this year when the Academy Award nominee will be seen starring as Motormouth Maybelle in a new movie version of “Hairspray.”
“That was a blast,” she says. “I mean just getting to do a musical again, a really big fun musical, and (producers) Neil Meron, Craig Zadan and (director) Adam Shankman promising me … that they would really, really do a great job with it and that I would have a really important part in the movie and I would get to wear a blond wig.”
Underneath it all – her career, not the wig– is her music, and she’s in the studio recording a new album.
Latifah, who shares executive producer credits with several others including Jamie Foxx on “Life Support,” also is set to executive produce “Wifey,” a hip-hop drama for BET and VH1. And she’s in talks to star opposite Katie Holmes in the indie heist film, “Mad Money.”
“I never want to put myself in a box – I like to be challenged in different ways,” she says. “I’ve got a short attention span, so if I can’t do different things then I get bored after a while.”
The birthday bunch
Actress Betty Hutton is 86. Singer Fats Domino is 79. Singer Mitch Ryder is 62. Singer Michael Bolton is 54. Singer Erykah Badu is 36. Singer Corinne Bailey Rae is 28. Actress Taylor Dooley (“The Adventures of Shark Boy and a Lava Girl in 3-D”) is 14.