“In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast” features in-depth conversations with today’s most noteworthy actors and creators. Join host and Awards Editor Jack Smart for this guide on how to live the creative life from those who are doing it every day. This episode is brought to you by HBO.
If there’s one statement that sums up Queen Latifah’s life philosophy—and the secret to her perseverance in so many areas of the entertainment industry—it’s this: “I’d rather get my heart broken and at least know that I lived. I’d rather break a bone and know I tried to jump.”
At every surprising turn of her illustrious career as an actor, musician, and producer, Latifah (a.k.a. Dana Owens) has combined that willingness to take risks with an exacting work ethic and irrepressible enthusiasm to inspire women like her. “Failure is a part of success,” she tells Backstage. “You’ve got to learn how to fail. If you don’t know how to fail, that’s a wrap...because you can’t build perseverance.
“And you’ve got to fail early,” she adds with a laugh. “I, luckily, was thrown out there in enough things to fail and cry and get up and fail and cry.” Born in New Jersey and drawn to musicals and jazz standards as a child, Latifah began blazing trails as one of the first women in hip-hop from the age of 17. Her group of fellow rappers and emcees eventually became Flavor Unit Records and Management, all while she simultaneously launched an acting career that has since accumulated an Emmy Award, three SAG Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, and an Academy Award nomination.
“You dream of these kinds of things because you see them on TV and they seem like dreams,” she says, reflecting on her teenage years. “But then when you have a friend who actually winds up doing it, you’re like, Wait, this could be a reality! And that friend for me was Will Smith.” Latifah made her first onscreen appearances in 1991, on Smith’s “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and as a waitress in Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever,” then led the hit sitcom “Living Single” around the time she won a Grammy Award.
“There were too many facets to my being to be kind of nailed all into one place,” Latifah says. “There were no blueprints for a lot of what I was doing. I mean, there were blueprints, but they applied to a different kind of car.”
That refusal to be pigeonholed as an entertainer has taken Latifah from gritty drama (“Set It Off,” the Emmy-winning “Bessie,” “Flint”) to frothy comedy (“Bringing Down the House,” “Last Holiday,” “Girls Trip”) to—fulfilling her childhood dream—musicals (her Oscar-nominated “Chicago” performance, “Hairspray,” and the live televised “The Wiz” and “The Little Mermaid”). She now produces CBS’ reboot of the action drama “The Equalizer,” on which she stars as Robyn McCall, the first female iteration of the titular character.
Why Queen Latifah Waited 20 Years for ‘Bessie’ “I’ve always wanted to play characters that showed women in a certain kind of way, that showed the strength of a woman, the intelligence of a woman, or the ability of a woman—in the way that I can deliver it,” she says. How does she construct such characters? “I do some homework, and then find a way to naturally bring myself to a place that sits in that person’s skin. I never judge the character. I sit in their own skin, sit where they naturally are.
“It’s really about just blocking everything out to stay in the moment,” she adds. “And finding music that can help me do that. There’s always a playlist, I always have songs that really affect me emotionally. So if I have to cry in a scene or have to get really sincere, I always find some song that’ll put me in that place.”
In all things, whether it’s getting into a character’s skin or performing at the Super Bowl, Latifah says her work ethic is always the through-line. “I can’t teach you how important work ethic is, it’s something you actually have to care about,” she says, remembering one of her earliest survival gigs. “I cleaned that bathroom at Burger King when I worked there at 15 like it was my own house! I could have done the bare minimum. But I chose to do the best I could do with the time I had.”
Listen to Latifah’s “In the Envelope” interview in full at any of the podcast platforms below. And stick around for a deep dive on taking headshots courtesy of casting insider Christine McKenna-Tirella!
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