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STAGE TO SCREENS: Chats With Whitford, Hurt, Howard, and Kodjoe
By Michael Buckley
05 May 2008
Making his Broadway debut, as Brick, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, opposite Tony winners Anika Noni Rose, James Earl Jones, and Phylicia Rashad, Terrence Howard describes the difference between theatre and working in film and TV: "The amount of preparation. On the stage, you have a month of rehearsals, a month of previews. You're able to discover aspects of the character, and of the production. You have a clearer understanding.
"In film and TV, there's a lack of preparation. You go in, sit down with the director, half-ass your way through part of a scene — and everybody's nodding, like they got it. They set up the cameras and blocking, and you're supposed to form the character, as if you've known this person all your life. You can never, never really accomplish much that way. Character develops in stages.
"But you have more time to rest with film. In theatre, you're owned by the stage, the producers, the audience. It's extremely difficult to do a three-hour, very emotional, show eight times a week. You cannot afford to not give a performance. Any actor who steps on a stage and thinks, 'I'm going to do what I did yesterday' is doing a disservice to himself, and to the play — especially with Tennessee Williams.
"Every emotion has to be real. You have to step out there, every night, emotionally naked. I try to be brand new again at every performance."
Does Howard think that he's captured Brick? "I won't feel that way until 10 or 15 years from now."
In my opinion, I tell him, I think that Debbie Allen directed the play very well. "Yeah, me, too," notes Howard. "She was criticized for her style of direction, but I think that she did a great job. We're sold out every performance, and we get always get standing ovations."
As previously arranged, Howard took a three-week leave (April 15-May 6), in order to promote the well-reviewed superhero movie, "Iron Man." Until the leave, his 10-year-old daughter, Heaven, played one of the drama's "no-neck monsters" (Maggie's name for her brother-in-law's kids). Did Heaven always want to act?
Replies her dad, "No, I insisted on it. It builds self-confidence." He also has a son, Hunter, and a daughter, Aubrey. The mother of three is Lori McCommas, to whom the actor's been married and divorced twice.
Howard's start was on an episode of "The Cosby Show." His breakthrough performance occurred in "Mr. Holland's Opus" (1995). Among his credits are the TV-movies "King of the World" (2000, as Muhammed Ali) and "Lackawanna Blues" (2005). He praises S. Epatha Merkerson, his co-star in the latter.
Theatrical releases include "Crash" (the 2004 Best Picture Oscar winner), "Ray" (with 2004 Best Actor Oscar recipient, Jamie Foxx, as Ray Charles), "Hustle & Flow" (for which Howard received a 2005 Best Actor Oscar nomination), "Pride" (2007), and "The Brave One" (2007). In the latter, Howard tells me, "Jodie Foster was so generous. She wanted me to have billing with her above the title." He adds, "But the end of the picture sucked."
Born in Chicago and raised in Cleveland, Howard's one of 11 children. Every summer, he came to New York to visit his grandmother, actress Minnie Gentry (1915-93). "She's my mentor," relates Howard. "She's why I'm on the stage."
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Filling in as Brick during Howard's leave, Boris Kodjoe made his Broadway debut. He told me, "I had to fight to be seen [for the role]. I wasn't on the list, at first. I spoke to Debbie [Allen], who let me audition. I had two weeks of rehearsals with Debbie and the understudies, two days with Debbie and the cast. They've all been an amazing help to me.
"Back home in Germany [where he grew up], I played professional tennis; I was one of the best juniors in the world. That's when I got hurt [suffering a back injury]. The decision to accept a [tennis] scholarship to Virginia Commonwealth University was based on the fact that my professional career was over.
"It's ironic. What Brick goes through is exactly what I went through — a year of severe depression. All my life had been focused on being the best tennis player in the world. That life was taken away from me; I didn't know what I was going to do. My mother said, 'Why don't you get your mind on other things, get away from home, go to the States for a couple of months?' But I stuck around to get my degree.
"Once, while I was visiting my sister in New York — she was working for Spike Lee — I was walking on the street and had a chance encounter with an agent from Ford [Modeling Agency]. I stayed in touch with her. After graduation, I came to New York [and soon became a supermodel]."
Pursuing an acting career, Kodjoe was signed for the series "Soul Food" (2000-04), which introduced him to his wife, actress Nicole Ari Parker. "She's a loving, beautiful person, with incredible spirit and energy; she's a great influence, in terms of acting." They're parents of two: daughter Sophie (3) and son Nicolas (1). Husband and wife also co-starred in the 2004 sitcom "Second Time Around."
In 2002, People magazine selected him as one of the year's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World." Is there any downside to the designation? Kodjoe laughs. "You're the first person who's ever asked. The answer's yes. In Hollywood, if you're not ugly, it means you cannot act. You get offered the same type of role over and over. The temptation is to 'take the money and run.' I turned down a lot of roles, because the offers didn't allow me to do anything [that required acting]."
Born in Vienna, and raised in Freiburg, Germany, he's fluent in German, English, French, and Spanish. One of three children of Ursula, a German-Jewish psychologist, and Eric, a Ghanaian physician (who married and divorced each other twice), he has a brother, Patrick, and a sister, Nadja. "I also have a 14-year-old sister, Lara, my father's child. She's named for a character in 'Doctor Zhivago,' a movie that's shaped my life. My parents loved it. I'm named after Boris Pasternak [who wrote the novel]." Kodjoe and his brother run Ziami.com, "which offers custom-made clothing at affordable prices." Next up for the actor (after his May 4 exit from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) is a trip to Boston, "to film 'Surrogates,' with Bruce Willis."
After a Cat performance, is he exhilarated or exhausted? "Both, but exhilarated supercedes exhaustion. This is a dream for me, so I don't really think exhaustion." Does he have other dream roles? "I'd like to play Othello." (Big Daddy James Earl Jones portrayed the Moor on Broadway in 1982, with Christopher Plummer as Iago.)
From center court to center stage: Is Kodjoe's Main Stem debut comparable to playing at the U.S. Open? "Yes, I'm playing a championship game with James Earl Jones [for most of Act Two]. That's my favorite [time as Brick]. Any actor on the planet would love to play this role.
"The first act is probably more difficult. Brick and Maggie used to be in love. There was tremendous lust between them. You can't detach yourself; you have to play indifference. But the second act's more rewarding. Cat has been huge for me. I'm finally able to show what I can do."
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VARIOUS AND SUNDRY
Danny Burstein, whose Luther Billis in South Pacific earned Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk nominations, not only appears in "Deception", the new movie, starring Hugh Jackman, but also just played Uncle Fester ("Boy, am I getting old") in the workshop of The Addams Family musical, with a score by Andrew Lippa ("great songs") and ("a very funny") book by Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman...Among this month's "Law & Order" guest stars: Stephen Collins (May 6, "SVU"), Melissa Leo (May 14, "L&O"), Len Cariou and Tom Everett Scott (both "L&O," May 21).
Frank Elgin, the role that Morgan Freeman currently plays in The Country Girl was originated (in 1950) by Paul Kelly (1900-56), probably the only Tony winner (Command Decision, 1948) to serve time for first-degree murder (details: Ibdb)...Renee Zellweger is executive producer, with "Chicago" moguls Craig Zadan and Neil Meron for "Proof", an October Lifetime movie, with Harry Connick, Jr. as the medic who developed breast-cancer drug Herceptin 2.
Reminder: Lerner and Loewe's Camelot, directed by Lonny Price, with Gabriel Byrne and Marin Mazzie heading a star-studded cast, will be telecast "Live from Lincoln Center" (Thursday, May 8, 8 PM ET) on PBS New York/Thirteen WNET.
(Stage to Screens is Playbill.com's monthly column that connects the dots between artists who cross freely between theatre, film and television. Contact Michael Buckley at stagetoscreens@aol.com.)
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Terrence Howard and Boris Kodjoe
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
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