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THE FILM STRIP: Jamal Woolard is Biggie on the big screen in 'Notorious.'
Angela Bassett says rap is like films, Voletta Wallace ponders the call Biggie received from Tupac, Samuel Jackson takes charge of his character in the ‘Spirit’ while Gabriel Macht brings hope, Tom Cruise tells why it’s important not to listen to other people, and Leonard DiCaprio shows a side never seen before.
*Just before the holidays more celebs than usual were in town to talk about their films and The Film Strip was there up close and personal to ask them about their projects. Brooklynite Jamal Woolard is Christopher “Biggie” Wallace in “Notorious” and his main concern was to be convincing.
“I just wanted to make sure I got it right,” he says. “It was just a matter of being a perfectionist with what I was doing, playing this iconic figure and what he meant to Brooklyn and the world. The pressure, the pressure.
One thing Woolard explained he didn’t get, even after looking at a lot of footage of Biggie, was the man.
“I couldn’t get the man. I would only get the Notorious Big, the iconic figure that we know. I couldn’t get behind the glasses or the wall ‘cause he had a shield up at all times. He was always silly when he was around his boys. Other than that, when it was camera time or media time, he’s like a still picture.
“It’s a blessing how things turned out. In high school I always had a dream to be a rapper and who wouldn’t want to be Big, you know? It’s just amazing how it turned out. It’s a beautiful thing.
“And you ask if there is a message in this film and will it influence my own lyrics, the answer is yes. In the film it was how to be a man. Definitely the message is how to be a man. From the vulnerabilities of a boy and how to treat his mother to the idea that money doesn’t make the man.
“With reference to my lyrics, we both come from the same struggle. We all got dreams to be something in life and whether you live it or not, you still have responsibilities as a man to uphold when you have kids. The similarities of me and big is that he had his daughter when he got his first big break with Bad Boy Records and I had my daughter on set for my first big break. I had my daughter March 10th and he died on March 9th. Yeah, it’s crazy.”
Even crazier are some of the things that have happened in Woolard’s life. In response to the Hot 97 incident he replies, “Don’t know anything about that situation.”
Angela Bassett, who plays Biggie’s mom in the movie and his real life mother, Voletta Wallace, sat together and rapped about the man and the music. Bassett was drawn to the script because of “the strength of this woman,” looking at Wallace when she said it. “I specifically asked that she play me,” Wallace offered,” and was very excited when she agreed.”
Angela, did you walk away with a different opinion of rap music after doing this film?
“I don’t think so,” she mused. I recognize that there is some that is very good and some that’s not so good. There’s some that has a depth and complexity to it and some that’s just fluff, you know what I Mean? It’s just like filmmaking. There are some films that have a depth and complexity and some that are a cobbling together of pieces we’ve seen and heard from this, that and the other. Because it’s on record is it music that can endure? There are some films that are art and they endure. Art endures. So there is some rap that endures, it’s telling. And then there is some that I really don’t need to subject my ears to.”
As would be expected with most parents, Ms. Wallace did not understand her son’s music either.
“There were days at home sometimes I heard things in the room. I called it noise [laughs]. I didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe the radio was playing something and then they would talk. One day he opened the door and he said to me, ‘Mom, we’re not making noise. That’s music. I said, ‘Oh my God. What kind of music is that? Mom, that’s called rap music. To me music was singing and he said, ‘Mom, I don’t sing, I rap!’ So over the years I tolerated the noise [laughs].”
Could a call to Biggie change the events of their lives? Voletta Wallace remembered Biggie getting a call from Tupac when he was out of state and being upset he wasn’t there to get it.
“I said Christopher why would you want to do something like [call him back] when he’s saying terrible things about you? He said, ‘Mom, that’s why I wanted to talk to him.'”
Samuel Jackson’s latest film is “The Spirit” and he’s more excited, it seems, than he’s been about all his other films because he had a lot to do with his character’s development.
“It’s quite an honor to actually walk into a situation and put flesh and blood to a character and I thank Frank [Miller] for that opportunity,” he beamed. “He gave me license to pretty much be as demented and as ingenious and as funny as I wanted to be. So I kind of took that as my license to do all the things that I’ve ever wanted to do in a film and chew as much scenery as I felt like chewing and not be criticized for it.”
The ads read, “He's [The Spirit] something the world needs.” What does the world have too much of and not enough of, The Film Strip asked The Spirit in the body of the film’s star, Gabriel Macht?
“Selfishness and a little bit of self-involvement. I think the world could use a little more goodness and outreach. There’s a lot of fear going on it seems The Spirit is the essence of goodness and the return of goodness to the city. With the downturn of the economy and the war, the world could use some more goodness.”
Could it be a coincidence that a man with the name of an angel gets to star in a film that opens on Christmas day?
“I do believe that things do happen for a reason,” he laughs, “but I don’t know if it was meant for me specifically to play this part. I can tell you it was an incredible opportunity to be given this part and I just had an incredible time working with everyone. It was just a blast. It’s an actor’s dream to be able to play a crime fighter like this who fights a notorious criminal mastermind and tangles with beautiful women, yeah.”
“Valkyrie” is a film dealing with an assassination plot against Hitler during WWII, so I asked Tom Cruise, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in the film, why is this film relevant today?
“I tell you when I first read it, I thought it was an incredible suspense thriller.” But what’s more important, he imparted was the message it delivered. “As a father there was something that struck me to the core because I have an incredible relationship with my children and to be able to discuss anything and everything is imperative. The way that I was raised you were encouraged to think for yourself. That no matter what people are saying or what images are coming at you, I was always encouraged to think for myself as an individual, and not going just with the crowd, the masses.”
One of the reasons Hitler rose in Germany, Tom alluded to was the fact that “People weren’t standing up to this insanity and tyranny…and children were being educated and inculcated into that craziness. Also, I love the stories of the little fish swimming upstream against insurmountable odds and this was a true story.”
In “Revolutionary Road” Leonardo DiCaprio is like I’ve never seen him before. And it wasn’t just me who saw this. Asking Kate Winslet, his co-star who starred with him in “Titanic,” if she noticed anything different in his performance this time, she concurred.
“I was seeing someone for whom I have so much respect doing things as an actor that I have never seen him do before and morph his face into positions that I've never seen him morph his face into as an actor and as a person. There were many moments like that pretty much every single day.”
And of course, Leo had nothing but kind words to say for Kate.
“As far as how Kate has changed or not changed, I think the truth of the matter is she's always sort of had that pursuit of excellence within the characters that she plays. She's got an unbelievable work ethic that she's retained ever since I knew her in her early twenties. Kate and I have remained close friends for many, many years. Since that film [‘Titanic’] I think we've both been actively looking for the right project to do. The fact that Sam [Mendes] was attached to this, the fact that this was a great piece of material and such a departure from what we'd done before, that it wasn't at all treading on similar territory which we know is a complete setup for disaster, this was the right project.”
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