It is interesting to be here and to see that for certain actors they have to live in a way that you think of nobody living anymore except for in small towns. They have such elaborate double lives.
Above all they have always shown great respect for the fans who made these movies such a success. Now it’s time that some of that respect be returned to them.
I do think that’s so much a part of what being a director is – in working with actors – to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.
For me, someone like the Eddie Murphy character doesn’t live anywhere; he lives on a stage and when he’s not on the stage he’s on a bus getting to the next stage.
From its inception by Michael Bennett, ‘Dreamgirls’ has always been an epic story with an ensemble cast. I didn’t change that. The screen version remains, really, a group story.
I think that finding a way into somebody’s life that’s sort of off from a side angle can tell you more about that person than a greatest hits approach.
When it comes to two of the big social earthquakes in the last fifty years – which are the gay movement and the women’s movement – I think there is a direct line from Kinsey to those.
You’ve got friends and family. That’s how we get by. We talk and share and eat cake and giggle in the dark, even when we’re scared – no, especially when we’re scared.
That day I think we really saw each other for the first time. I mean, saw beyond the bag of bones on the outside. You take away her pretty and my plain and what you get underneath is about the same: a couple of lost girls looking to be found.
