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Being 'baaad' is so good, 'Madea's' schemers say

In Tyler Perry's new film, "Madea's Family Reunion," Blair Underwood is Carlos, a wealthy Atlanta executive who mentally and physically abuses his fiancée. And Lynn Whitfield is Victoria, the scheming mother of the bride-to-be, who not only doesn't take her daughter's side, but is in league with Carlos for nefarious reasons of her own.

Yes, Underwood and Whitfield play really mean, nasty people. And both say they relished their roles, which gave them the opportunity to play soap opera-style villains to the max. After all, being bad isn't exactly the sort of image either Underwood or Whitfield cultivated in their movie and TV careers.

Alfeo Dixon (enlarge photo) 'She feels that money is power, so she's ready to marry one daughter off to the richest guy in Atlanta and to sell the other one down the river,' Lynn Whitfield says of her character, Victoria, in Tyler Perry's 'Madea's Family Reunion.' Movie review

Underwood, a soulful hunk who starred on TV's "L.A. Law" and "Sex and the City," plays the familiar "IBM" (Ideal Black Man) in the recent romantic comedy "Something New." In real life, he fills that family man role as a husband and the father of two sons, ages 8 and 4, and a 7-year-old daughter.

Sitting in a swanky Atlanta hotel restaurant on a recent promotional stop, clad in chic T-shirt and jeans with a trim leather jacket and lunching on a bowl of chicken noodle soup, Underwood is the epitome of the genial nice guy. Asked when he became a bad man, he laughs.

"I'm a baaad man," Underwood says with mock seriousness. "But it was a conscious effort. I've always wanted to do primarily positive roles. But literally, my last day after 'L.A. Law,' I was on a plane to the Bahamas to rehearse a film called 'Just Cause,' with Sean Connery, where I play a serial killer and a pedophile. So that was the beginning."

Whitfield, who grew up admiring Audrey Hepburn and Bette Davis, has the confident, classy energy of a movie star of another era. Perhaps best known for her title role in "The Josephine Baker Story," she was also in "Eve's Bayou," the Martin Lawrence comedy "A Thin Line Between Love and Hate," and the Jamie Foxx drama "Redemption."

Wearing a short, silky dress, Whitfield exudes the sort of mature sexuality she brought to Victoria. She jokingly calls it her "Mrs. Robinson moment." Asked if she liked being Victoria, she smiles slyly.

"I didn't get to strip down and get my legs up on the table the way [Mrs. Robinson] did," Whitfield says. "But I did get that moment. And I thought it was a very interesting character to play. A woman who really is devoid of any sense of morality and right and wrong, completely full of herself. She's devious, and absolutely desperate, like Scarlett O'Hara, to never go hungry again. She feels that money is power, so she's ready to marry one daughter off to the richest guy in Atlanta and to sell the other one down the river."

And are wicked roles like Carlos and Victoria actually as fun to take on as they seem?

"Those kinds of characters are really juicy," Whitfield says, "juicy with a little extra sauce on top. You can explore things that you never have to be judged for. And it's very splashy and bold. At the same time, when you play an evil person or a person who does bad things, you can never play them as if they know they are doing bad things."

Underwood's take: "I've always wanted to be an actor. And the reason I wanted to be an actor was to play various types of roles. Hollywood likes to put you in a box. Whenever I have an opportunity to break out of that box and do something unexpected, I do it. Playing a good guy, everything is expected. The audience knows what to expect. So to do the unexpected is always much more interesting."