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 Let’s start with what we already know about Gabrielle Union, who costars opposite Eddie Murphy in this month’s Meet Dave. First, she’s gorgeous. That’s a given. Perhaps the thing that’s most attractive about Union, though, isn’t her stop-you-in-your-tracks dimples or her spellbinding eyes but her UCLA-educated mind. We know, we know: It’s cliché. But in Union’s case, it’s also true. The woman has strong opinions, and she isn’t afraid to share them. Want to know how she feels about the glass ceiling or to find out the real reason she got into filmmaking? (Hint: It wasn’t for “the art.”) Read on -- that is, if you can stop staring at this photo long enough to turn the page.
[dl] Movies
The Union Movement
Meet Gabrielle Union. She is not Ashanti -- obviously. By Allison Winn Scotch
Gabrielle Union is being tailed on the freeway. “Oh my God, he’s honking,” she tells me by cell phone. “This is so weird.” She shouts to the other driver, “Please, go away!” “Maybe he recognizes you,” I suggest. “No, he thinks I am someone else,” she says. “It happens all the time. He is probably thinking he’s chasing down Garcelle or Ashanti or Brandy.” Eventually, her suitor drives past her, and Union laughs it off. “I’ve done whole in-person interviews where someone has mixed me up,” she says.
It’s hard to fathom that Union, with her tall frame, striking good looks, and career success -- she has been working steadily for more than a decade, appearing in megahits like Friends and Ugly Betty and in blockbusters such as Bad Boys II and Bring It On -- could be mistaken for anyone else. Though she is now occasionally misidentified, she may not be for much longer. This month, Union is poised to shoot to the stratosphere -- nearly literally -- when she costars opposite Eddie Murphy in Meet Dave. They play tiny aliens who come to Earth in a spaceship designed in the form of a human. Or something like that. So, weird honking guy on the freeway, get used to this. It’s Gabrielle Union.
You started your career as a model. Is it a love of acting that’s led you to where you are today? I fell in love with the money, to be honest. I was a student at UCLA and was making $6.16 an hour as a book-buyback supervisor. As a model, I was working a whole day for $100. I thought, This is awesome! I am rich! When I started booking acting jobs, I paid off a third of my student loans two weeks later. Eventually, I started getting into studying acting, not just cashing the checks. I really began to love it, and that is when I decided that as long as I can make a living, and as long as I do not inconvenience my parents, I am going to do this. I have never stopped making money, either, though, to be brutally honest.
You know who makes a lot of money acting? Eddie Murphy. And Will Smith. And Jennifer Aniston. You’ve acted alongside all of them. Is being on set with those people like being in a master’s class? Yeah, I am always learning. But it is not necessarily just from the big names. There are people who are amazing actors who have never gotten a shot. And I generally learn more from them. Certainly, their biggest lesson is humility. You can go from being the hottest thing, the “it” person, to unemployed very quickly in this business.
So the prospect of it all being taken away is still in the back of your mind? Oh, absolutely. Unless you are making $20 million a picture, you are fooling yourself.
You’ve been outspoken about the glass ceiling for black actors. Do you still feel like you’re ramming your head up against it? Definitely. A casting director can always say, “She just wasn’t right,” and I can’t respond, “But look at my résumé versus this person’s. Look what my movies have done.” In any other profession, you can quantify your attributes and say, “Look, this is clearly not fair.” But it doesn’t work like that for us. So if you choose to be in this business, you are also choosing to deal with this reality, and you try to do whatever is in your power to make as many small changes as possible, hopefully for the next generation.
It sounds like you’ve seen people gutted by the business. I have a lot of people tell me that they want to be an actress. And I’m like, Do you want to be famous, or do you want to be an actress? Those are two different things. If you love acting more than anything, you would be just as happy doing Pippin in Poughkeepsie as you would be working with Cameron Diaz. If you want to be famous and maybe your dad didn’t give you enough attention at home, you are not in the right business, and the likelihood of your making it is not really good.
Okay, so before you get back to dodging honking guys, break down Meet Dave for us. I hope I can help. Basically, we are two-inch-tall martians, and the orb that we need in order to survive on our planet has crash-landed on Earth. So we form an expedition to retrieve it and take it back to our planet. In order to blend in, we create a ship in the shape and form of our captain, Eddie Murphy. So there is the two-inch-tall Eddie, our captain, inside the ship, helping to run things, and then there is the ship Eddie, who has to navigate Earth and try to blend in.
Battle of the Titans
This month, two superheroes -- longtime
stalwart Batman and newcomer Hancock -- square off at the box office.
Who will prevail? The numbers tell the story. By John Ross
Hancock vs Batman
$2.2 billion
Lifetime gross of all films starring Will Smith, who is
Hancock in Hancock, a movie about a superhero who drinks too much and
cares too little about the collateral damage he causes when he “saves”
people in Southern California.
-$40 million
Amount that
Collateral Damage made at the domestic box office. The film did not
star Will Smith, but it did star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, as
governor of California, would have to clean up any collateral damage
caused by Hancock -- if Hancock were real, that is. Still, we’ll count
it, but against Hancock.
+$545 million
Lifetime gross of all
films starring Charlize Theron, who plays Hancock’s possible love
interest. (It’s complicated because she’s married to Jason Bateman’s
character, a PR guy helping Hancock reform his image and fight crime.)
+$143 million
Domestic box-office take of Juno, Jason Bateman’s last film in wide release.
| $609 million
Lifetime gross of all films starring
Christian Bale, who plays Batman/Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight, the
sequel to Batman Begins.
-$395 million
Lifetime gross of all
films starring Katie Holmes, who played Bat love interest Rachel Dawes
in Batman Begins. Holmes isn’t in The Dark Knight. Her part now belongs
to Maggie Gyllenhaal. So that counts against the caped crusader.
-$40 million
Domestic
box-office take of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s most recent film in wide
release, Stranger than Fiction, which starred Will Ferrell in kind of a
dramatic role. That does indeed sound stranger than fiction. We’re
counting it as another strike against The Dark Knight.
+$1.2 billion
Lifetime
gross of all films starring Michael Caine, who plays Alfred, the butler
who helps Bruce Wayne form his image and helps Batman fight crime.
$1.37 billion
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Winner: Hancock, by a leap and a bound. |
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[dl] Books
Easy Street
In a new memoir, Charles Strouse, the composer of Annie and Bye Bye Birdie, offers a behind-the-curtain look at life on the Great White Way. By Kristin Baird Rattini
 Charles
Strouse may have written the music to accompany the lyrics “The sun’ll
come out / tomorrow / bet your bottom dollar / that tomorrow / there’ll
be sun!” but he’s never quite shared Annie’s famous optimism. In fact,
Strouse, 80 , says he has been plagued by overwhelming self-doubt
throughout his long, successful career. That’s despite the fact that he
has won three Tonys, two Emmys, and two Grammys; has composed beloved
musicals like Annie and Bye Bye Birdie; has scored big-screen productions like Bonnie and Clyde; and has cowritten one of the most famous TV themes, All in the Family’s “Those Were the Days.”
“With
this success I’ve had,” Strouse explains, “I still feel that I’m
getting away with something, because I like what I do so much.”
Clearly,
theater fans like what he does as well. Strouse’s 80th birthday is
being celebrated throughout this year in tributes and performances at
the Library of Congress, the Juilliard School, and the Palladium in
London, among others. Strouse, too, is marking the occasion. He’s
penned the book Put On a Happy Face: A Broadway Memoir ($20, Sterling), which recounts his doubts and triumphs during his years on Broadway.
But
don’t think of all this fanfare as a send-off. Strouse is hardly done.
He lives in Manhattan, just a few blocks away from the Great White Way,
and he’s still working. Drop in on him during the week and you’re
almost certain to find him tickling the ivories on his Yamaha upright.
Currently, Strouse is composing the score for a stage version of The Night They Raided Minsky’s.
The musical is based on the 1968 William Friedkin film of the same
name. Strouse and his longtime writing partner, Lee Adams, wrote the
score for that movie, and the musical version has been a decade in the
making. Not that Strouse minds, really -- the more work, the better.
“What makes my day is if I write six good measures,” he says.
Here, Strouse offers seven measures of his life and work.
Based on Jay-Z’s recording of “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem),” which samples tracks from Annie’s “It’s the Hard-Knock Life ,” Jay-Z might have a second career on Broadway ahead of him.
“I
was thrilled. It’s the largest-selling record I’ve ever had. It’s
already gone platinum four times. The most positive part is that Jay-Z
wrote in the liner notes that when he first heard the song, he
recognized the terror of the ghetto -- the terror of kids who are put
upon and lead lonely, dark existences.”
Art sometimes imitates other art.
“The theme song for the TV show All in the Family
is very typical of the kind of works lyricist Lee Adams and I wrote.
Norman Lear [the show’s director] wanted a chorus and all that. It was
my idea that the song was filmed with everyone sitting around the
piano, because that is what we used to do at home. Those sing-alongs
are among my happiest family memories.”
Those neon lights on Broadway are brighter than you think.
“Broadway
brings with it a kind of glamour that is almost indescribable. It
brings international fame unlike anything else. When Applause opened,
it was in the Hong Kong newspaper the next day. When Bye Bye Birdie performed in London, I met the prince. So Broadway success transcends that piece of real estate.”
Annie has something in common with the finest of hops and grains.
“The first four measures of the song ‘Maybe’ in Annie
were from a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer commercial jingle I wrote that never
aired. I always thought there was a certain kind of wistfulness to it.
We added it to Annie during previews in Washington, D.C., and it stayed in.”
But does Vanessa Hudgens have a Broadway future? Maybe not so much.
“I think it’s getting tiring, High School Musical
and such. It seems to have caught a profit-making, commercial aspect of
the theater that’s a bit away from the pure entertainment of it.”
Strouse has a cast in mind for a movie based on his memoir, should one ever be made.
“While I was working on the memoir, I thought, Gee, I wouldn’t mind making a movie of this. I recently saw a movie called Run Fatboy Run.
It’s fantastic. It’s a story of coming up and winning against yourself,
which I feel. So that actor, Simon Pegg, comes to mind to play me.
Because when I got married, I said, ‘I cannot do this.’ Suddenly, I was
where I was supposed to be, and I heard ‘Here Comes the Bride,’ and I
fainted. That’s the way that picture starts. So I immediately connected
with it.”
Warren Beatty once put a hard knock on Strouse.
“Warren
Beatty is one of the most brilliant guys I’ve ever worked with. You’d
think he’s too good-looking to be that smart, but he really is. I
thought I wrote a very good score for his movie Bonnie and Clyde.
I remember there was a tune I particularly liked. He came up and asked,
‘Can I hear that with a piccolo and a tuba?’ He had the right to say
that as a producer, but he did it after telling me how much he liked
this trumpet solo [that we had already decided to go with], a very
lonely sound that I particularly liked. So we came to blows. It’s funny
because I’m no fighter, and he was at least four inches taller than me.
But we actually came to blows.”
SING ALONG
Since Charles Strouse’s songs are among those tunes you
just can’t get out of your head, we asked him to name a few songs that
get frequent play on his mental jukebox. | “The Way You Look Tonight” by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields
“They Can’t Take That Away from Me” by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin
“When
I hear these songs, there are moments I can remember of my wife or of
an old girlfriend looking like that, or of my mother being all dressed
up to go out. I’m not that sentimental of a man in many respects. And
today, sentiment is very unfashionable in music. It’s more about loss.
But there is a sentimental streak in me, and I go to these songs a lot.”
| “Every Time We Say Goodbye” by Cole Porter
“There’s one line --
‘There’s no love song finer / but how strange the change / from major
to minor.’ Of course, the chords change from major to minor at the same
time. That’s genius. Each word and note is crystal. I don’t think he
sat down and thought about it, but Porter changed the form and face of
regular music.” | “I’ll Be Seeing You” by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal
“Sammy Fain was
a friend of my father’s. I can remember to this day how he sang it.
Memories of my family go along with that song.”
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[dl] Music
Rock On…and On
On a new album, Alejandro Escovedo recounts his musical journey, which has spanned four decades. By Bob Mehr
This
past April, Bruce Springsteen did something unprecedented. During the
encore of an arena show in Houston, Texas, he brought up cult Americana
artist Alejandro Escovedo to perform. True, guest stars in
Springsteen’s shows are not unusual. But the remarkable thing was that
the song “the Boss” and his E Street Band chose to play wasn’t one of
theirs but one of Escovedo’s. And it was from an album that was then
still months away from release.
Such is the devotion that Escovedo -- who’s just released his eighth solo album, Real Animal
-- inspires in his fellow artists. Springsteen is just one of his fans.
When Escovedo was sidelined by a nearly fatal battle with hepatitis C
earlier this decade, some 31 musicians united to cover his songs on a
fund-raising 2004 tribute album called Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo. That kind of devotion has recently spurred film director Jonathan Demme to begin work on a documentary film about Escovedo.
But
while Escovedo’s following among musicians is solid, general audiences
may still be catching on to him and his story. That’s where Real Animal
will come in handy. The album is something of a sonic autobiography.
Its songs tell Escovedo’s tale, beginning with his birth in San
Antonio, moving on to his musical coming-of- age as a teen in
California (where his family moved to when he was six), and then going
into his adventures with a series of wild, colorful bands throughout
the ’70s and ’80s. Escovedo’s remarkable journey included a run with
the shambolic punk outfit the Nuns, who opened the Sex Pistols’ final
show in 1978 and later moved into New York City’s infamous Hotel
Chelsea. (Escovedo was living there when notorious punk icon Sid
Vicious killed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.) Escovedo eventually
returned to his Texas roots, playing with cow-punk combo Rank and File
and, later, with the True Believers.
We asked the 57-year-old singer-songwriter to talk about Real Animal, literally the album of a lifetime.
The
album recounts your four decades of playing rock music. Does it feel
strange to have been playing that kind of music for so long?
Keith Richards always said he wanted to learn how to grow up in rock
and roll. And I think once you get past the glamour and money and all
that stuff, once you really get into the music, there’s no way you can not
grow up in rock and roll. If you’re a musician, that’s what you are --
as well as Duke Ellington was, as Count Basie was. It’s silly to think
of rock and roll as just a young man’s game. I don’t believe that to be
the truth.
I am older; I’m not 20 years old, and I don’t sing
songs for kids. But I do feel that I do every aspect of my craft better
now than I’ve ever done before. So I feel lucky.
Did you have the concept for Real Animal from the outset, or did the songs come first?
I decided early on that I wanted to make a record about my musical
journey. Immediately, I knew I wanted to chronicle the life of the
bands I’d been in -- the Nuns, Rank and File, the True Believers -- and
the people that I had met along the way. In a way, I know I’ll never be
in a rock-and-roll band like those again. And I think that was part of
it for me -- to look back and try to understand that whole experience.
You wrote the songs with Chuck Prophet, a fellow rock-and-roll traveler. How did the two of you come up with material?
We would just get together and hang out, really. We would talk and I
would tell stories of the people in the bands I’d been in, and we’d
tape all of that stuff. That would inspire an idea, and then we’d just
kind of start riffing together on a certain lyric or phrase or
character. When we’d get stuck, we’d go back and listen to a lot of the
records that had influenced us -- David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, and
T.Rex. So it was a great process, a great way to write.
Why did you enlist producer Tony Visconti, who has worked with David Bowie and T.Rex , to helm the project?
Part of this record and this story was about going back to the source
of what it was that inspired me. We spent a lot of time listening to
those great ’70s records and drawing from their influence. And Tony
actually produced a lot of those records. So, in a way, having him work
on this brought the whole thing full circle.
Working on something so autobiographical, did you develop a different perspective on your experiences?
I learned a lot about these characters and the people I hadn’t thought
about for a long time. I ended up having a lot more respect for the
sheer act of wanting to be in a band, playing in a band, and the work
that it takes.
What was it like to debut “Always a Friend” onstage with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band?
Oh, man! It was like driving a Ferrari. It was unbelievable. I broke
the land-speed limit. I told my managers afterward: “Those four minutes
were more important than the 33 years I’ve been playing music.” It was
like everything focused into that one thing, that one moment. Bruce was
very generous and genuine about enjoying the song; the whole band was.
That night, I had the best band in the world. It was really great.
You’ve
earned a lot of critical praise, and you’ve never seemed to crave pop
success in your career. Is there anything you’re still missing at this
point? I don’t want a lot more. I want for us to play as well as
we can, to stay healthy, to be able to make more records. That’s what I
want. I’d love to be able to pay my bandmates better; they’ve been with
me for so long. My drummer’s been with me for 25 years, and there has
been some drought during those years. I’d love to be able to take care
of them. But whatever happens, I have to tell you that, for me, the
success has been that we’ve stuck to what we believe in and we’ve
always played hard. I think that’s enough in itself.
TWO TO WATCH
Make your television set happy with these TV shows. By John Ross
 DVD: Robot Chicken: Star Wars
NECESSARY BACKGROUND: It’s a Cartoon
Network stop-motion animated show created by Matthew Senreich and Buffy
the Vampire Slayer’s Seth Green.
TECHNOLOGICALLY BACKWARD: These
days, computers that can (probably) think independently are making the
big-time action-movie scenes. But way back in the days of feathered
hair and Farrah Fawcett, back when Star Wars was new, if you had to
film something in outer space, you employed a guy, a plastic model,
some fishing line, and stop-motion cameras -- just like Robot Chicken
does.
YOU’D BETTER LIKE BONUSES: The episode is just less than 30 minutes long. The bonus features on the DVD are four times longer.
AVAILABLE: July 22
|  TV SHOW: Flashpoint, CBS
NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH: USA Network’s Burn Notice. That one’s actually about a spy, and its second season premieres July 10.
ALSO
NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH: FX’s Rescue Me, which is about firefighters in
New York. You won’t be able to see its new season until 2009.
THERE’S
NO FIRE AT ALL: Despite the fiery title, Flashpoint is actually about
other kinds of emergency responders: bomb squads, sniper units, and
hostage rescuers. Basically, this is S.W.A.T., except that it’s filmed
in Toronto rather than in L.A. and there are no characters named Hondo
or Deacon.
PREMIERES: July 11
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