Exclusive Interview: Kasi Lemmons on Black Nativity

I first knew Kasi Lemmons as an actor. She starred in one of my favorite movies, Fear of a Black Hat, as documentary filmmaker Nina Blackburn following a fictional rap group in Rusty Cundieff’s satire. Then I discovered the early Nicolas Cage vehicle Vampire’s Kiss, and she was in that too! Of course she also appeared in The Silence of the Lambs as FBI Special Agent Ardelia Mapp. As director, she wrote and directed Eve’s Bayou and directed The Caveman’s Valentine and Talk to Me.

Her new film is Black Nativity, a Christmas musical based on a play by Langston Hughes. Jennifer Hudson stars as Naima, a working single mother who sends her son Langston (Jacob Latimore) to live with his grandparents (Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett) in New York. Langston resists the visit, and his grandfather’s preaching, while encountering tough characters on the streets of New York including Tyrese, Nas and Mary J. Blige. We got to speak with Lemmons by phone as she strapped in her headset and began discussing her diverse career with us.

 

CraveOnline: You as an actor starred in two of my all time favorite movies, Fear of a Black Hat and Vampire’s Kiss.

Kasi Lemmons: Oh my God, I can’t believe you mentioned those movies. It’s so funny because when I was submitting on Eve’s Bayou, I went to London. People would come up to me and say, “You’re in one of my favorite movies.” And it’s like, “What are they going to say?” “Fear of a Black Hat.” Are you kidding? That is so funny.

 

You probably expect Silence of the Lambs, right?

Exactly. Vampire’s Kiss I am very fond of, I must say.

 

I’m glad. Do you ever think of Nina Blackburn today and what she might think of today’s artists like Kanye West and Justin Bieber?

Huh, actually it would be interesting to have her do a piece on those.

 

Are you still in touch with Rusty Cundieff?

I have not seen Rusty in a dog’s age. It’s been a while. Sometimes you don’t travel in the same orbit. He’s such a creative guy.

 

When you made Vampire’s Kiss could you believe what Nicolas Cage was doing?

He was an odd dude, but I had such a great time with him. Later we would run into each other and he’d be like, “Can you believe we made that cult film?” Because it had a little cult following. I think we didn’t know at the time that it was going to turn into such a cult thing.

 

Was directing always the plan when you started as an actor?

Not really at all. At first I think I wanted to write and I thought I might make documentaries. I went to film school thinking I would make documentaries. I think my thought at the time was that I would be an actress and maybe have time on my hands also and be slightly frivolous and I could go down to Nicaragua or whatever with a camera on my shoulder and shoot documentaries. So I didn’t really think about directing dramatic features until after I had written and shot Eve’s Bayou. It didn’t really occur to me. I didn’t put it together, and then one day I woke up and I kind of put it together and I was like, “Wait a minute. You went to film school and here’s a script you wrote. Perhaps you should direct it.”

 

So it was after you’d written Eve’s Bayou?

Yeah, it was after I’d written Eve’s Bayou.

 

I noticed in the credits to Black Nativity, every actor except maybe Forest Whitaker had their own record label that they were licensed from. How did that complicate making a musical with them?

Well, fortunately it’s not up to me to license them from their record companies but it was a concern when we were casting, whether we were going to get the labels to lend us the artists. I remember those conversations but fortunately it’s not my job to make those deals, and everybody was very generous with us and behind the movie. Mostly people were very willing and generous.

 

Were there any names you brought to your producer and he said, “That’s going to be tough?”

You know, Nas, I was worried about Nas. Also Jennifer, everybody. It was a concern as to whether they were going to pull everybody together or whether they needed to all be on the same label, but I just waited for somebody else to work it out. I was like, “This is who I want so figure it out.”

 

Have we heard Forest Whitaker sing before?

Well, if you google it you can see him sing “Summertime” at a benefit. I knew that he could sing because I read online biographical pieces about him and so I read that he studied to be a singer because I was looking for it. I was looking for an actor that was a singer, so he was at the top of my list. Then trying to find something where he sings, you could kind of read about stuff online. I read about him singing but it was hard to find a clip. But, there was one clip. The quality’s not so good but he’s singing just enough for me to know that this guy’s actually really great.

 

Last year the buzzword for musicals was live singing because Les Miserables did it. Were you able to use any live singing on Black Nativity?

We did. It just seemed like the right thing to do for me. In order to make sure we were covered, I wanted to record to prerecord and record live and if necessary post record. I thought it might take all those things to make sure we were covered and had the right sound, and we do use all of those things but there is live recording in Black Nativity, absolutely. We were able to do that, thank God. It’s a great thing to do because Jennifer’s great live and Forest was great life, and he wanted to record live.

 

How hard was it to turn Times Square into the manger scene?

It was actually so much fun. The negotiations were tricky. It was like okay, what day can we shoot and how would it fit into the schedule? What day can we do all the stuff that we wanted to do, camels and the whole thing? But it was a lot of fun, I’ve got to tell you. It’s something else to stand in Times Square and you have camels and sheep. It was very, very fun.

 

Was it a Sunday and what hours of the night was it?

We shot [other scenes] there in the daytime for a little bit in Times Square, and I cannot remember what day of the week it was. I want to say it was a Tuesday but I can’t remember.

 

So it was a weeknight, but because the manger scene is at night it could’ve been four in the morning.

Yes, it was. We shot a late call and we worked very late.

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