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Billy Woodruff - Film
By Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist
www.twitter.com./rychmccain and Facebook (Like Me)
Billy Woodruff
Directs “Addicted!”
"Addicted" Director Billy Woodruff
Film director Billy Woodruff has built a
respected track record of directing music videos for slew of superstar
recording artists such as Lil Wayne, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Celine
Dion, R. Kelly, Usher, Tray Songz etc., as well as hit TV shows such as “The
Game" for CW/BET and others. His films have included “Honey”, “Beauty Shop” and
a musical “Rags” for Nickelodeon and in all of them had subject matter was
pretty safe. Woodruff’s latest project “Addicted”
starring Sharon Leal, Boris Kodjoe, Tasha Smith, Tyson Beckford, Emayatzy
Corinealdi, Kat Graham and William Levy for Lionsgate/Code Black Films, is a
far departure from anything he’s done to date. It tackles the subject of sex
addiction straight up with no punches pulled. Sex addiction is a subject that
has remained swept under the rug but is a real life dilemma for a lot of
people. It generally affects men and women who were sexually abused in early
childhood and their teen years. Once a child’s innocence has been sexually
violated they are never the same afterward because that can never be given
back. On top of that they are too young to process what happened and they lose
respect and value for their body. Than anything goes i.e., gender role confusion,
hyper sexual activity, prostitution and the list goes on.
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| Sharon Leal as Zoe and her husband Jason (Boris Kodjoe) |
The movie is based on the novel of the
same title written by the queen of erotica Zane. The sex scenes in the movie
get pretty steamy. How important were they to the movie as a whole? Woodruff
explains, “The sex scenes and how they were done; obviously as a director
everything is important to me but because that is like a character in this
film. What’s she’s going through and the problems that she has are manifesting
themselves through this sex addiction so the sex scenes are very important to
the character.
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| Zoe and extra-marital affair love Quninto (William Levy) |
I storyboarded everything ahead of time and I had gone
to sex addicts support group meetings to experience what that was like. Keep in
mind that I wanted it to be tasteful so I met with the actors to see what they
were comfortable doing.” Woodruff laughs, and added, “Then I pushed them
further.” Woodruff is a perfect director for nude scenes because he says “I’m a
sexual person. I don’t have hang-ups about sex and sexuality and also I have
explored a lot of it with what I did in music videos. I had to always shoot
people simulating having sex (but not in all videos). But I’ve spent a lot of
time dealing with artists having to be naked and direct them. So it’s not
foreign to me to do it in a directorial setting. I relate to my actors so I try
to make everything as comfortable as possible.”
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| Cory (Tyson Beckford) was Zoe's 2nd back-up lover |
And if the sex issue was not enough, the
film includes a parent abandonment issue as well. Cuban born actor William
Levy’s character Quinton was a victim of his mother leaving him and his dad for
another man. This all comes to a head as well. It is also interesting to note
that Levy is a superstar hunk in the Latino entertainment world and “Addicted” is a rare film that has a
Black and Latino lead. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out at
the box office. If successful enough it could set off a new wave of
Black/Latino (Blacktino) combination films.
©
2014 Rych McCain Media/Syndication TM
(You
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