Queen Latifah

Yes.

One of my good buddies Ramsey Gbelawoe, who helped me get into this business, wrote the script. Shakim [Compere] came up with the concept because he had gone to a cookout, and for those that don’t know, a cookout is barbeque. He had gone to one and the elements of this story happened to him. His whole family had shown up and some of them were buck wild. He thought there was a story in that. So the Flava Unit got together and we started fleshing out the idea and making it into a complete concept. Then Ramsey came in and wrote it. We had already sold the idea to Lion’s Gate. We got Lance [Rivera] to direct it because he had been down with us for a while so we wanted to give him an opportunity. The reason we did this particular kind of movie was because we want to make fairly inexpensive urban films. We didn’t want to tell the typical story of some hood stories that we all see all the time. They’ve been told well by some people so we wanted to make something that was more of a family oriented comedy. Maybe people think urban means black but for us urban means citified which means people from the city can identify with it. It’s not just for black people.

I wasn’t attached to this when we first sold it. It was just something that we thought would be a good idea. The story didn’t require me and I knew I was shooting another movie at the time but this role was a fun little role. She’s off her rocker. I thought I could come in and play that nut. We thought it would be a fun way to get Queen Latifah in the movie which from a business perspective would help promote it.

There was a lot of humor in my house growing up. I didn’t think I was comedian funny and I still don’t think that. But I think I have a pretty good sense of humor and good comedic timing which I figured out when I was doing Living Single because people in the business made that observation. Little things like that were put in my ear over the year. I’m not one of those people who has to look pretty all the time in the movie. I’m willing to take chances which I’ve been doing since Set it Off.

There was some little bits. I asked for the gold tooth then I just started sucking on it. We sort of developed the character on the spot.

Any damn fake rent a cop. Anyone that’s ever harassed you in a supermarket or clothing store. There’s plenty of them out there. They make you take your shoes off and they really get off on that stuff. I figured my character would have a bit of a power trip. The difference is that she has that machine gun in her office. Don’t ask me how she got the weapon.

That was fun. It’s always good to not have traffic to deal with. When we shot Taxi it was like the perfect storm of traffic. There was the UN convention so every delegate in the world was here. It was damn near impossible to get some of those shots and we lost a lot of money in New York trying to nail those shots. Maybe a couple of months earlier we would have been fine.

They are two totally different movies. I was so tuned up for Taxi that I could just go back to The Cookout and relax a bit. They are both comedies so I was able to stay in the comedy place. It was different when I was doing Set it Off and Living Single at the same time because I had to go from gangster to happy. It’s almost like schizophrenia and that’s where my acting coach comes in. He doesn’t show me how to act but how to switch from Queen Latifah to Dana Owen to whatever character I’m playing.

My singing album is coming out September 28 through Universal. It’s called The Dana Owens Project. It’s an eclectic mixture of jazz, blues, soul and a couple of pop tracks on there. It’s all covers of 30’s to the 80’s anything from Diana Washington to Jose Feliciano.

It’s a hustle. You have to know who you are and where you are at all times and never lose track of that. Be seen wherever you can, local plays, talent shows or whatever it is you need to get a break.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck