Rych McCain Hollyhood Notes : 2014-10-05

Friday, October 10, 2014

Billy Woodruff - Film

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Billy Woodruff - Film

By Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist

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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.

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.

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.”

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.

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Essense Adkins - TV

By Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist

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Essence Atkins

A Heart Felt Performance On A Serious Subject

Photo Courtesy UP Lifting Entertainment

L-R: Essence Adkins and Lynn Whitfield

Being an adopted child and growing up without knowing your biological parents always makes for emotional drama. It is a serious subject that many experience but the answers on how to handle meeting either both or one of the real parents for the first time for a child turned adult is a moment that either the parent or child is prepared to deal with. Actress Essence Atkins best known for her roles on The WB’s “Smart Guy” and UPN’s “Half and Half” turns in a heartfelt performance in the Up Lifting Entertainment network’s TV movie “My Other Mother” where she plays Candace “Candy” Meyers a successful anchor on a top-rated TV magazine show who is content with the love of her adopted family. Candy has never even thought about her biological family until she travels back for her biological dad’s funeral and meets his family. This leads to meeting her biological mother played by Lynn Whitfield who has issues. The two of them are left to sort things out and begin a life that leads to a different path for both.

L-R: Essence Adkins and Jasmine Guy

With the subject matter of this role being so heavy, how did it affect Atkins personally in real life especially having to bounce off of Lynn Whitfield who can really bring it to a role? Atkins runs it down, “This was my third time working with Lynn so she was a big part of why I said yes. When they told me she was going to be playing the role of Mary Jo I was like OK where do I sign up? She’s an immense talent. She’s a great woman and I love spending time with her as well but watching her craft a character and coming up with everything and being so detailed it’s such an inspiration and I learned so much from her. The role its self and playing the role; I mean anytime you step outside of yourself and into another’s shoes, I hope you can gain not just the audience watching but for us as artists, gain that perspective and appreciation for what it is you do have. And yes that fact that Candy is adopted and she reaches a point in her life where she feels like she definitely needs some answers. I think that’s universal and it happens at different points in our lives. They’re not necessarily middle age issues they are like kind of as we get older we keep looking back and evaluating ourselves and maybe even maybe having a sense of our mortality we start to want different answers to different questions that we haven’t yet asked. So I think that’s where Candy is in this journey.”

This made for TV movie was shot in Atlanta on a tight schedule in only two weeks. For a 90 page script that’s almost 10 pages a day which is a grueling pace. Is there a psychological difference when Atkins shoots in different cities such as Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles or elsewhere because all cities do have different vibes which can affect the actors? She responds, “No one has ever asked me that before. I feel differently when I’m in those places so I imagine that it kind of calibrates in some way as how you carry yourself throughout the city and the space. The people of the city are different as is the energy and vibe. I’m from New York (Brooklyn) and even though I’ve lived in California for a long time I still don’t feel like I move or navigate through the world like a Californian and my husband says that all the time. He’ll ask why are you walking so fast?”

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Thursday, October 9, 2014

Taraji P. Hensen - Film

By Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist

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Taraji P. Henson

Ups The Stakes In New Psycho Thriller!

Photo Courtesy Sony/Screen Gems

Taraji P. Hensen as Terri

Hollywood is a predictable place where actors of color are routinely placed in a box with a limited number of roles to play that fit the box mode. The standard excuse for this disguised discrimination is that main stream audiences won’t support these actors in main stream roles especially in Europe where a bulk of the money in film is made. That argument is hard to swallow when Hip Hop/R&B is the largest selling music on earth! So the studios are telling us that Europeans eat Black music up asking for more yet they won’t come to see them act in films? That position doesn’t hold water and every now and then someone will slip out of that box and prove the naysayers wrong.

Taraji P. Henson is one of those rare actresses who crosses over the you-can’t-do-this line and hits a homer every time she does. This veteran beauty has amassed an impressive body of work in TV, Films and Videos. Henson garnered an Oscar nomination for her role as Brad Pitt’s mom Queenie in “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” and not only recorded “It’s Hard Out Her For A Pimp” with rap group Three 6 Mafia but performed the song live on the Academy Awards broadcast show where the tune won the Best Song Oscar. She is coming off of a smash hit sequel “Think Like A Man II” and now has a new psycho thriller out “No Good Deed” opposite Idris Elba. Again Henson has gone into territory where Blacks seldom get a chance to shine but she was not only up for the challenge, but has the acting chops to back it up! Henson is not only making headway into expanding her reach in film and TV, she is also breaking ground on the other side of the camera as a producer. Both she and her “No Good Deeds” co-star Elba are co-executive producers on the film as well. Henson is going full steam ahead with her own production company to develop projects to market, promote and expand her brand.

Idris Elba at your door as killer Colin Evans

So how did a rare chance to do a psycho-thriller come her way? Henson explains, “Will came to me first before he was the Will Packer that we know today about three or four years ago with “No Good Deeds” before “Think Like A Man” but we just couldn’t get it together. Then finally we got Idris to do it. It was originally written for two White leads. Will found the script, brought it to me We tried to do it with me and a leading White male but we couldn’t get the schedule together so Will decided why not make it two African-American leads but we got pushed back by the studio because it’s never really been done, two African-American leads in a thriller genre.

Hide and seek killer style

They got a little nervous but we kept pushing saying no we want to do this. So they green lit it and our schedules got messed up again and “Think Like A man” came along. Will then said I have something else I want you to do and I said I don’t want to do “Think Like A Man” I want to do “No Good Deeds.” So I made him promise if I did “Think Like A Man” he would do “No Good Deed" next and he made to his promise.”

Hensen with toddler and Mirage Moonschein as Ryan

How much fun was it to work with Elba who is ranked as one of sexiest hunks in showbiz? Henson laughs, “I’ve worked with a bunch of sex symbols. I think all of my leading men have been sex symbols in some way. I’m sexy so you have two sexy people working together.” Because this film is the first of its kind Henson stresses the importance of the public to support it opening this opening weekend.

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