MOVIE MOJO
Queen Latifah on ‘Ice Age,’ her new album and her past, private life
For the AJC
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Queen Latifah, 39, has made her mark in almost every realm of pop culture from her ground-breaking hip-hop feminism in the late 1980s to her own TV shows and her Oscar-nominated turn in “Chicago.”
These days, she’s producing films, managing her own CoverGirl cosmetics line and touting the benefits of Jenny Craig.
Blue Sky Studios
The pregnant Ellie, a mammoth, is tended to by her ‘brothers,’ possums Crash and Eddie in ‘Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.’ Queen Latiifah again voices Ellie, as she did in 2006’s ‘Ice Age: The Meltdown.’ Blue Sky Studios
DAN STEINBERG/AP
Queen Latifah credits her young nephews with convincing her to be a mammoth again.
Here, Latifah talks about her latest animated feature and the trials of being a celebrity.
Q: In this film, you revive Ellie who was introduced in 2006’s “Ice Age: The Meltdown.” Why did you come back?
A: My two nephews called me Aunt Ellie for two months after the last one came out. [laughs] So I just did it for them. Just being able to do something that all the kids in my family get to enjoy and remember for years to come is very exciting to me.
Q: Are there special challenges to voice acting?
A: You have to try not to wear a bunch of jingly stuff because the microphone will pick it up. [laughs] It’s an interesting process. It happens over years. You’re used to doing a film that takes two to six months at most. You have to really sort of stretch imagination-wise and trust in your director because you’re usually not recording in a studio with the other actors. Another thing that happens in the process [is that] they film you while they’re recording the voice so they’ll take some of the faces you make and add them to the character, so it’s really you in a way because all those little nuances get added to the character.
Q: In the June issue of Essence magazine, you revealed your history of childhood sexual abuse. Why now?
A: Honestly it’s one of the songs I have on my [new] album and the topic just came up [in the Essence interview]. I didn’t really feel like I was making an announcement. … There are various things I’ve done in my career that let me know that people are watching what I’m doing and listening to what I’m saying and can be inspired by it. My body type. The confidence I have. There are many women, for sure, who have been inspired by that. … In my [1993] song “U.N.I.T.Y.,” I talked about domestic abuse in that and so many people told me that because of that record they got out of their [abusive] relationship. When we live in a country where one in four girls is tampered with, that’s staggering. It’s terrible.
So maybe by me talking about it, someone will open their mouth or talk about it so they can begin to heal from it, or be more mindful of watching their children.
Q: You have a makeup line, a new album, and you’re producing and starring in your next film, “Just Wright.” How do you stay focused and centered?
A: I know who I am, so I don’t really feel the need to have to parade my private life in front of the world. … I don’t want to share that. I have to share so much of my life with the public. … I need to keep some things for myself. I’m a happy person. I like to keep it that way.
