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.
But you really – I always think that a director has got to adapt to whatever the needs of the actor are. You know, so if you take someone like Eddie Murphy, who is not a big fan of rehearsal.
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.
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.
I had a couple of movies that I was passionately involved with that I could never get made. ‘Richard Pryor,’ I wrote for – gosh – over a year. That was close to getting made for two-and-a-half years after that.
There’s nothing quite as good as folding up into a book and shutting the world outside.If I pick the right one I can be beautiful, or fall in love, or live happily ever after. Maybe even all three.
