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On Screen: 'Waiting to Exhale' women say film gave
them breathing room Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO -- The gorgeous women of Waiting to Exhale get the full star treatment. Each arrives and departs in her own black limo. During their together time during interviews, though, the four actresses, along with writer Terry McMillan, are a sister act to remember. "I really wanted to work with (director) Forest (Whitaker). I really loved Terry's book. And the chance to work with Whitney (Houston) -- beautiful, talented, a superstar all over the world! Well, it was no decision at all." "Sure, it would have been intimidating to play with Whitney and Angela [Bassett] if you stopped and thought about the personalities. But for me, I was just an actress who was ready, and I wanted it so bad that I didn't even think about it until I got the job. Then it was, 'Oh, s---. I fooled everybody. Can I really do it?'" Copyright Detroit News Dec 23, 1995 Full Text: 'Waiting to Exhale' Rated R Now showing at area theaters. SAN FRANCISCO -- The gorgeous women of Waiting to Exhale get the full star treatment. Each arrives and departs in her own black limo. During their together time during interviews, though, the four actresses, along with writer Terry McMillan, are a sister act to remember. Says Angela Bassett, spectacular in satin and sculpted braids: "I really wanted to work with (director) Forest (Whitaker). I really loved Terry's book. And the chance to work with Whitney (Houston) -- beautiful, talented, a superstar all over the world! Well, it was no decision at all." Says Houston, radiant in blue jeans, blazer and diamonds: "I just saw the movie (with an audience) and it was like, 'Go, baby! Play that part! Tear the room up, Angela! Burn it, baby!' It was like I was the audience." Says Loretta Devine, aglow in violet silk pantsuit: "Angela is the movie star in our culture. I watch her work and I'm in awe. And Whitney is the superstar. So this is like a dream come true for me." Says Lela Rochon, the baby of the group, elegant in black velvet blazer over lilac satin shirt: "Sure, it would have been intimidating to play with Whitney and Angela if you stopped and thought about the personalities. But for me, I was just an actress who was ready, and I wanted it so bad that I didn't even think about it until I got the job. Then it was, 'Oh, s---. I fooled everybody. Can I really do it?'" The four bring glamor with a capital G back to the big screen as stars of the just-released film about beautiful, professionally successful black women with major man problems. Even for a long day of interviews, all are dressed, coiffed and made-up to the same stunning standard of the movie. Although they're lavish in their praise for one another, each, in her own turn, has plenty more on her mind than sweet talk. Bassett, who, like Meryl Streep, is a Yale Drama School grad, carries the most impressive professional credentials in the group. She's had starring roles in three major movies this year: Strange Days, Vampire in Brooklyn and now Exhale. But she's frustrated -- and, in a controlled way, plainly furious -- at being held back by her color. "Black women have never been made to feel beautiful," Bassett asserts. "They say, 'Angela, you can't be on the cover of Vogue because it won't sell.' "I hear that, OK? "I work hard. I don't think I'm a bad-looking person.
I've been nominated for an Oscar, which means something. "But in 1995 that is what
we're hearing: 'If you're a black woman, you're For her part, Houston mentions that when Whitaker first approached her about a part in Exhale, she had a lot else on her mind -- principally her first trip to South Africa, which she recalls with real passion. "When I arrived, (Nelson Mandela's daughter) Zinzi Mandela said, 'Welcome home, my sister, where you belong.' And from there, it just took off for me," Houston says. "I've been all over the world. And I finally got to Africa and I saw people that look like me. Little girls that look like my little girl. Boys who could be my brother. Men who could be my uncles. It was incredible!" Loretta Devine, of the enormous eyes and tinkling giggle, happily remembers having to gain 20 pounds for her role as a woman who eats to assuage her loneliness. "It was easy, it was wonderful: Just keep eatin'," she says, laughing all the while. "Steak and eggs for breakfast. Pasta. Cake. Whatever I wanted. It was a dream life. If you like to eat. "The idea wasn't to get me fat. Big, but toned. I think I was -- well, fluffy." Rochon, not only the youngest of the four but also the least experienced, brought TV commercial work and two turns as the love interest in Eddie Murphy movies to Exhale. She felt professionally arrested and frustrated about it. "I've experienced pain as far as being typecast," she allows. "The glamorous chick, the babe, somebody's girlfriend, somebody's wife for two pages. "I've been judged at auditions: I can't do something deep, I can't do a whole character. If Forest hadn't been so open and I hadn't been so tenacious, I was not even close to being considered. The studio wanted only big names." Impish, outspoken Terry McMillan, whose best-selling 1992 novel inspired the movie, gets the last word. The movie's a lot less forcefully feminist than her book, and that, she says, is just fine with her because she, too, has mellowed. "When I wrote the book, I didn't have a date in
months," McMillan says. "Same with my women friends -- black, Hispanic, Asian,
white. And I didn't get it. I didn't understand why this was so. "Now that's
all changed. And I've come to believe that women were sort "It's not that I'm letting them (men) off the hook. It's just that we're paying attention to everybody's flaws and not their virtues. And in that case, we're all gonna be sitting on our mama's f---in' porch -- take out that f-word." McMillan cocks her head, smiles mischievously and proceeds to this current tidbit from Terry's book of truisms: "Everybody's out there playin' it by ear. The message doesn't come from Ricky Lake or Oprah. It comes from within: Pay attention!" Probably not by coincidence, that seems to be the common credo of all four of Waiting to Exhale's high-glam, high-contrast stars. Caption: Loretta Devine, from left, Lela Rochon, Angela
Bassett and Whitney Houston have nothing but great things to say about their experience
filming "Waiting to Exhale."
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