By Andrew Gans
27 Dec 2002
Hello, diva lovers, and happy holidays! Big news: I wanted to let you all know that beginning Jan. 1, 2003, Playbill On-Line will present a new column that spotlights the men of Broadway and cabaret.
CHICAGO
Well, the wait is finally over! "Chicago" arrives in New York and several other top markets today, Dec. 27, before rolling out across the country in January. At the screening for the film a few weeks ago, journalists were given a press kit that contained interviews with the film's stars and creative team. What follows are a mix of quotes from those involved with the movie of the Kander and Ebb classic. Next week, I'll feature my interview with the film's Roxie Hart, Renée Zellweger.
Renée Zellweger as Roxie Hart:
Executive Producer Meryl Poster: "Renée [Zellweger] was the only choice [for Roxie Hart]. Period. I have a strong relationship with her and knew that she could sing and dance. I already knew she was a brilliant actress. I had to get her into the movie."
Director Rob Marshall: "This is a lady who loves a challenge, who works really hard, and loves to attain something that she hasn't yet before. That's just who she is. She's very brave in that way. She's an athlete. She has a great sense of her body, and she moves beautifully. The vocabulary of dance was a little new to her, but the style, the sensibility and coordination—she had all that."
Producer Marty Richards: "I thought there would never be another Roxie Hart. There's never been anyone that has ever matched Gwen Verdon until Renée, and now she gives it a whole different dimension as an actress as well. I'm thrilled to death. I really am."
Co-star Richard Gere: "Renée brings something incredibly moving to this piece. She's doing something with her part that's unexplainable. She'll break your heart."
Zellweger on Roxie Hart: "She's so earnest in a way, and so desperate and tragic in another. She's so desperate for fame because of what she thinks it will bring — self esteem, self-respect, self-worth, love. All the things she doesn't have a lot of. She feels that if she is lionized by the masses like Velma, she'll be more whole as a person. The sad reality is that it's a fallacy."
Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly:
Co-star Renée Zellweger: "She's so in her element here. She's so powerful as a singer and dancer. When we'd be learning the dances, I'd step a few paces behind and watch her feet. I'd see what she was going to do next. She has this vivacity. She has this grand energy that elevates the energy in any room. She enters, and you just see it. It flashes all across the screen.
Producer Marty Richards: "Catherine worked her butt off training for this and making sure everything was perfect. She had bruises and scrapes along with everyone else."
Zeta-Jones on being the first one cast: "It was fantastic to be the first one cast in the movie. Robby [Marshall] would call up and say, 'Guess who we think we've got: Renée Zellweger!' 'Oh my God!' 'Guess who we think we've got: Richard Gere!' 'Oh my God!' Guess who we think we've got: Queen Latifah!' 'Oh my God!' It's a fabulous cast."
Queen Latifah as Matron "Mama" Morton:
Director Rob Marshall: "We had rehearsed her number 'When You're Good to Mama.' And the day before we shot it, I came to her and said, 'You know what? I'm re-blocking the entire number. Instead of putting you on stage, I'm putting you in the house, so it can be bawdier, and so you can react with them. She looked at me cross-eyed and said, 'You're serious, right?' And I said, 'Uh-huh.' She was a trooper, and she nailed it."
Executive Producer Neil Meron: "Queen Latifah is an amazing actress. It's putting a spin on the role, and reinventing it, and not disrupting the period. She's incredibly believable, and she brings her own spirit, talent and brilliance to the role of Mama Morton."
Queen Latifah on musicals and Mama: "As a kid, I watched all those old musicals. I love 'The Sound of Music' and a million other movies like it. It was like going on a journey in filmmaking to another land. I think the last big movie musical that had any impact on me was 'The Wiz.' I played a lounge singer in 'Living Out Loud,' but I'd never been in a movie musical. When I heard they were making 'Chicago' into a film and when I heard who was starring in it, I really wanted to earn the part. Initially, they didn't have me in mind for Matron Mama, but I kept going for it . . . It's all about reciprocity with Mama. 'If you want my gravy, pepper my ragu.' She's tough, but she gets what she wants."
Christine Baranski as Mary Sunshine:
Director Rob Marshall: "[Marshall cast a woman in the part usually played by a man in drag] because Mary Sunshine has to credibly exist in the reality of the movie as well as in Roxie's surreality. It wouldn't work the same way it does on the stage. Plus, Christine Baranski is fabulous and perfect for the part. Christine and I had to invent our way through it. She, Bill [Condon] and I created this savvy news lady who was a sob sister. Be we worked at getting a sense that she was as corrupt as everybody else."
Music supervisor Maureen Crowe:
"We recorded all the vocals for 15 songs in a week, which is not a lot of time. They all brought their own specific styles to the songs that came out of their individual characters and their experiences as actors. They were all just outstanding. To work with all these talented people was a music supervisor's dream."
Theatrical Lighting Designers Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer:
Eisenhauer: "Choosing colors is a bit intuitive for us. A lot of it flows out of the work we've done before, knowing when pink should be a little dirtier because that conveys a certain feeling. We did try not to use modern colors, choosing tones that would have been seen by the eye in that era."
Fisher: "There was also the influence of Reginald March. We tried to capture that kind of warm, under lit, theatrical glow that you'd see in a Degas painting. [Director of Photography] Dion [Beebe] used that to great effect all the time. He was able to take what we do and fit it to the film so that the movie captures the nuances and subtleties of theatrical lighting."
Screenwriter Bill Condon:
"I'm amazed by how enduring this little story has turned out to be. Maurine Dallas Watkins' original play ushered in a generation of cynical, wise-cracking newspaper comedies. It actually opened a few months before The Front Page. In 1975, Bob Fosse cast a darker light on the material. The corruption of the legal system became a metaphor for the hollowness of all American institutions. Like so much popular art of the time, it was informed by the twin traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. Then Chicago was revived in 1996, on the heels of the O.J. Simpson case, and the show business metaphor really came into focus. People connected to it in a completely new way. As for the movie, I suspect that the blurring of the line between notoriety and celebrity will make a lot of sense in our post-Monica age . . . It was appealing in every way, and the most fun I've ever had writing a script. Not only to write a movie musical, but also to work with Rob [Marshall], who has had an incredibly successful career in the theatre. He's worked with giants like Jerome Robbins and Harold Prince. You learn so much on every script, and this was a chance to learn from someone who had learned from the masters, and become a master himself." Continued...
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