|
|
|
ALICIA KEYS and COMMON on 'SMOKIN' ACES'
Contributed by Michael J. Lee, Executive Editor
for Radio Free Entertainment
December 14, 2006
"How many psychotic, degenerate, ruthless hitmen do you need to take out one strung-out, freaked out snitch?" That's the premise of Smokin' Aces, a hip action-thriller from Joe Carnahan, the director of Narc. Jeremy Piven heads up an ensemble cast as Buddy "Aces" Israel, a Las Vegas magician who is a key witness in a federal case against the mob. When he threatens to turn states evidence, a $1 million bounty is placed on his head, drawing every hitman in the game to his hideaway in Tahoe. The result is a violently spectacular convergence full of bullets, blood, and carnage.
Smokin' Aces also features Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Alicia Keys, Jason Bateman, Common, Ben Affleck, and Andy Garcia. The action is incredibly stylized and over-the-top, making for a fun and fast-paced ride. From the psychotic trio of the Tremor Brothers to Alicia Keys' sleek femme fatale assassin, the hitmen are an exceptionally colorful cast of characters. The movie is manic and frenzied, and very cool.
In this interview, Alicia Keys and Common talk about working on the project.
|
The Interview
|
MEDIA: Alicia, did you actively want to avoid a role in which you were playing a singer or musician of some sort?
ALICIA: Well, that was obviously one of my most important things. I did not want to play a character that was a reflection of who I am. I also wanted my first film to be something where I was surrounded by an amazing cast. This fit that criteria to the fullest. I wanted to do something that was completely unexpected, totally out of the box, something that would blow people's minds, that the last thing on the planet earth that they would ever think I would do would be. This met that criteria as well. It was very exciting and it totally took me out of my element and out of my comfort zone completely, and it challenged me in a way that was very rewarding for me.
What did the both of you learn from the acting experience?
COMMON: For me, I just learned to be a freer artist. I think that it made me more comfortable with myself, actually acting, because I started getting more in tune with him, by doing roles or even just being in a class and being around people. That gave me a certain confidence and I started digging into parts of myself that I had probably ignored and don't really get to express because Common is an artist that is conscious and is aware and is trying to put a positive energy to the world. So, me being able to be acting and doing other things has opened me as an artist, and I think even more from a visual standpoint too as far as writing goes.
ALICIA: I felt that I rediscovered how tremendously close the two worlds are. I grew up in the theater. My mother is an actress. I was always around the world of acting and theater and I was always amazed the way that people would come in looking one way and transform completely to the point where I couldn't recognize their language and their accent, the way that looked and their hair and their faces even changed in becoming so inside of the character. So, I think that I reconnected to the way that that affects me so much when I see a film that moves me in one way or another, either angers me or makes me feel good or saddens me, whatever, and how that connects so much to what I do as an artist as well. The two are very close together in regards to drawing on your life experience, drawing on something that you understand and transforming it into something that you give to the world or give out in another way. So, for me, it actually confirmed how close they are for me.
|
|
How did you work on developing your character and dealing with the firearms?
ALICIA: Oh, there was much work that went into--tremendous work that went into developing Georgia in regard to the acting and digging into her. When I was with my coach, I almost called it therapy for me because she dug things out of me as a human being where I was like, "Wow." But I knew that if I didn't or wasn't able to address them there in that room with her then I would never be able to address them there on that set. So that was intense work for me to do. I physically worked out tremendously. That was intense work for me to do. Our gun training was extensive to the point that my hands were cut and bleeding and it hurt very badly, but these were all things that were a part of developing Georgia to discussing with [director Joe Carnahan] in a private way of what Georgia's story was, where did she come from, what her life had been like that, why did she feel that this was what she had to do and her only option, what it was that drove her to this, what was it about my relationship with men as Georgia that would make me feel these feelings. So many just deep discoveries and things that went into pulling Georgia out of my understanding of who I wanted her to be.
With your onscreen chemistry being so strong, do you plan on pursuing anything together on the music front?
COMMON: I've been blessed to come and rock some shows with her and I was also featured on her unplugged album. We're artists and I respect her as a woman and as an artist, as a person, and when the time is right, we might connect like that. I feel like if she has a song, I'll be like, "Come on, let's get on this." I'll be down for that. Or if I have a song. So I feel that would come naturally like everything else in life.
ALICIA: That's a beautiful thing because rarely are you able to establish a relationship with a person where you get to know them. You rarely know them. Here though you can call them on the phone and say, "Hey, what's going on with you? Where's your head and how is it all with you?" To be able to have that without having to go, "By the way, can we get on this music together real quick?" is amazing. So when we do that, it'll be the friendship. So it's all good.
What does acting give you that music does not?
ALICIA: Well, I personally feel that acting is not so totally different from singing and being a musician. My feeling is that because the way that I write a song it's a memory. It's a moment in my life, and three years later when I'm on stage signing that same song I have to recall what it was about that moment in my life that made it real for me and bring that back to the moment on stage to make it real for you. To me that is the same technique that I use in a very basic way for acting as well. So I find that they're very similar for me which is why it's not such a stretch, not such a leap. But what acting does bring that music doesn't bring for me the opportunity, and probably for Common too because he said this, the opportunity to be completely different in every way from who we normally are, the person that you are when you wake up in the morning--that's the person you are in your life. But to take that and have the opportunity to be the complete opposite of that as Georgia was, as Ivy was, is the excitement of it. I think that personally allowed me to access places in myself that perhaps I had never accessed before because they are not who I am on a daily basis. So, that is the incredible part of it for me and that I love tremendously.
COMMON: I have to agree with Alicia with the acting. For me, it's just another way to express myself as an artist. I had to battle with myself for a minute about wanting to establish myself as an actor, that I don't want to be seen as this rapper/actor, and I realized that if you're an artist, you're an artist. You can express that through music, through painting, through photography, through acting. This is just another way for me to express myself. Certain things about scheduling and different things that are different from the music industry, that's one difference that I've seen, but overall as far as artistry goes, it is a similar expression. Alicia answered it when she said that you do basically discover other things about yourself that you probably wouldn't have just writing songs sometimes. That's what it is.
|
|
|
