Every Day I'm Hustling Page 7

  And yes, it was a big deal that here we were making a movie about two black people and a Jewish guy who save the world. I would talk to Will about what that could mean for the African American community, but he saw it as a bigger thing.

  “I don’t want you to think of it that way,” I recall him telling me. “You just have to be a strong woman. Somebody that they don’t look at based on your skin color.”

  I got that. You know that I am black and I’m proud. But I don’t want to be seen solely for my color. People don’t say Meryl Streep or Jennifer Lawrence are wonderful white actresses, and I will leave it at that.

  Will was dating Jada Pinkett, who I thought was just fantastic. They met when she auditioned for Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but they thought she was too short! Nia Long got the gig instead. So I had to tell Jada, “Listen, I have to kiss your man in this movie.” She gave me her blessing and told me to go for it. “Just bring the Binaca.”

  Our big kissing scene was shot outside at night. It was bone-ass cold and we were crying from the wind in our eyes. I didn’t have to warn Jada because it was the furthest thing from sexy! We’d kiss kiss kiss, wipe the snot away, spray the Binaca. Kiss kiss kiss, wipe the snot away, spray the Binaca. We ended up winning Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards.

  *   *   *

  Will also helped me plan the next step in my career, Set It Off. The director, F. Gary Gray, was friends with Will and came to visit the Independence Day set. Jada Pinkett had already been cast, and I’d grown so close to Will and Jada that Gary saw me coming on the film as a family thing. He was so young, twenty-five, and wanted to make sure he worked with people he liked. He said to me, “Yo, I’ve got this movie…”

  He told me he wanted me for Frankie, the bank teller who gets fired from her job after having a gun held to her head during a robbery. She grew up in the projects with the robber, and so the bank wrongly accuses her of being in collusion. Fed up, she begins robbing banks with three girlfriends. “But the studio wants Rosie Perez for Frankie.” My face fell. Rosie was so talented, and had been nominated for an Oscar for Fearless. He asked if I could audition for T.T., the sweet new mom, but also come in ready to read for Frankie.

  Will had read Jada’s script, and as soon as I told him about the double audition, he was clear about my game plan.

  “You can do T.T., but you really gotta get Frankie,” he said. “You gotta go in there and take that shit. Take what should be yours.”

  He started slamming his fist in his hand like a motivational speaker—which, in that moment, he was. He knew Frankie’s story was the biggest in the film because she was who the viewer would identify with as she responds to having her back against the wall. And he also knew people saw me as just the pretty girl. A glamour girl is limited because she doesn’t get to do the gritty parts. They didn’t know I was Angie Fox who grew up by the projects.

  “You gotta go in there and be pretty and be a bank teller and be professional,” he said. “But when they do you wrong, you gotta bring it, V. Your main note is that you want revenge.”

  I auditioned on a lunch break, and I got the part. Gary told me when I said Frankie’s lines, he was like, “Where did Vivica go?” I will always love Will for coaching me to be my best.

  I got to bond with those ladies on the film: Queen Latifah (who still calls me Big V), Jada, and Kimberly Elise. We rehearsed and rehearsed, and became as tight as our characters were in the film. To make our friendship believable on-screen, Gary wanted us to hang out and chill off the set. Do the things that our characters do together so that we had an ease and history with each other that would translate to the screen.

  We were all nuts about one another right away. Kimberly was from the theater and was so quiet but so talented. She had a young child of her own, so the main ones who hung out all the time were me, Jada, and Latifah. The funny thing is that Jada was such a hip-hop head as a teenager in Baltimore that she worked in a club where Latifah did an appearance. Jada hadn’t even heard her music yet, but was so hungry for female role models that when she saw a photo of Latifah, she demanded that she be the emcee and introduce Latifah that night. Meanwhile, Latifah was so young she had her mom with her! Two kindred spirits recognizing that drive early.

  I introduced Latifah to sushi when we were downtown and the only place that was open was a sushi spot.

  “Girl, I’m from the East Coast,” she told me flat-out, putting on her Newark accent as thick as possible. “We don’t be eatin’ no raw stuff.”

  “Girl, you don’t have to eat everything that’s raw,” I said, coming back at her full Indy. “I got you.”

  “If I am paying for that food, they’d better cook it.”

  Sure enough, she loved it. “Wow, this is good!” she said. To this day when we meet up for a meal, we have sushi to commemorate our start.

  As I got closer to Jada, I had a front row seat to watching Will court her. Will approached it like he did everything that was important to him. He was not playing and was putting it down. Every week during the course of Set It Off, there was an escalation. First it was a thousand roses in her dressing room. Then it was a marquise diamond necklace. By the end it was a convertible Mercedes. He was saying to her and to everyone around, “You are the one. You are the one.”

  I can’t talk about Jada without paying tribute to her as a mother. I watched how having those two gorgeous, interesting, smart children, Willow and Jaden, transformed her. She became regal. When she speaks to those kids, she reminds me of my teacher Mrs. Fletcher, the one who would see every conversation as an opportunity to teach and learn.

  The biggest lesson Jada gave me was when I was rushing through lines on the set. I had gotten used to soap acting, where time is everything and you have to just get it done. We were rehearsing, and a scene just wasn’t gelling for me.

  “Do you realize why you’re not getting what you want?” she asked me.

  I hadn’t thought of it that way. I was just plowing through, saying the lines.

  “Take your moment,” she said. “Let that emotion happen for you, V.”

  She was right. I still do that now. I do a lot of work to get into character before the camera starts rolling or I walk out onstage. I create backstory and develop mannerisms. If my character has a certain job—whether I’m playing a beauty blogger or the President of the United States—I am all over YouTube watching videos of people who do that, to get the cadence of how they speak and the carriage of their bodies. All that preparation creates the bones of the character, but I still have to breathe life into it. Take my moment, let the emotion come in so I can feel it and be authentic as I tell the story.

  Gary was one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with. He had a strong, clear vision of what he wanted and demanded excellence. One time during filming we all went to lunch and came back, I swear, two minutes late. Gary let us have it.

  “Y’all late,” he said.

  I care about being on time. It’s one of my things. Still, I said, “We’re hardly late.”

  “Y’all got to understand I’m serious about this movie,” said Gary. “People gonna come to the theater thinking they are gonna laugh at y’all women. We gotta make it work. We are making a classic.”

  He was tough, but the thing that made him so great as a director and as a boss was that he would bend if the idea merited it. I had ad-libbed a line during my audition, and it wasn’t in the script when it came time to shooting. It was when Frankie, shell-shocked from the robbery, is interrogated by the police about knowing the robber. Meanwhile, she is covered in blood from seeing a woman get shot in the head. The script said there were two detectives, one a black woman and the other a white man who does all the talking. I thought, even though it’s the police, there has to be one woman-to-woman moment there. As Frankie leaves, trying to hold her head high, I paused to say to the black detective, played by Ella Joyce, “You didn’t bother to ask me if I was thirsty, sister.”

  It didn’t make it int
o the shooting script, and I asked Gary if I could try the line for the film.

  “Give me one,” I said, “Can you give me just one?”

  That’s the thing. Give a director or boss what they think they need, and then you can say, “Hey, can I have this take for me?” If you show up prepared, knowing your lines and allowing everyone to work efficiently, that structure you have helped create gives you freedom. Once you give them what they need, you allow them the opportunity to say, “Sure, go for it.” We did the second take, and that’s the one he used. He told me that when he saw it in the editing room, he threw his hands up and yelled, “This child right there!”

  The dumbest thing to do is to walk in new and just say, “I know what will work.” Turnoff number one: “I know better.”

  The last six of the nine weeks of shooting were filmed at night. I decided we had all become vampires. It took a bit for our sleep schedules to get back on track, but it was so worth it. Set It Off helped me show that I wasn’t only a glamour girl standing next to the hero: “I’ll wait here while you save me!” You see Frankie make a transition when the chips are down, becoming completely hood while maintaining her strength and her integrity. I’ll never forget running into Dominique Wilkins during All-Star Weekend after Set It Off came out. Here was this basketball legend—without question one of the greatest dunkers in NBA history—running up to me.

  “Vivica!”

  “What’s up, ’Nique?”

  “Vivica, Set It Off!”

  “What about it?”

  “Yo, I had to go see that shit two days in a row!” he said. “I was crying. That movie was good as hell.”

  I still have grown men coming up to me saying that Frankie made them cry. That year was a lesson in diversifying. Independence Day had an $80 million budget and a huge marketing campaign. Set It Off had $9 million and word of mouth. I am so proud that all of those actresses are still doing incredible work today, and that Gary went on to be handed the keys to the Fast and the Furious megafranchise.

  Set It Off showed my different strengths. I have said time and again that for me, my versatility has equaled my longevity. You can’t get typecast in life. If I stayed the glamour girl, who was going to hire me when Hollywood said I was too old for those roles? There is a shelf life for certain chapters in your life, especially in entertainment. If you learn how to go into each chapter gracefully, then you can extend the longevity of your career. Because so many people hold on to being the young hot chick, and you’re like, “Girl, let it go. You no longer can do that.” You need a second act. I ask them what I ask myself: “What you got next, bitch?”

  So what have you got to keep you from getting typecast in life? How are you diversifying? Let’s go through some quicksand scenarios that might be keeping you from moving forward and reaching your real goals.

  1. Your job won’t let you grow.

  People get used to seeing you in a certain way and those perceptions get stuck. And then you—and your career—get stuck. If you’re Judy in accounting but you want to be president of the company, you need to show you can do more than what’s expected. “You’re Judy in accounting,” they might as well say in your always positive employee evaluations. “We will never promote you because what would we do if we didn’t have you in Accounting?”

  Ah, but if they outsourced the work and closed her department, they would certainly figure out what to do without Judy in accounting. In my world, it’s why I prefer to do a movie over a television series. With TV, a studio can pull the plug on you at any moment. Or put you on Saturday nights at nine-thirty, then say, “Hmm, ratings are down. Sorry.” There’s really no security. When you do a film, you’ve got your schedule and you’ve got your cast and crew. It’s rare at that point that they’ll say, “Everyone go home.” They’ve invested the money, they want a return, and box office receipts don’t lie.

  So I would tell Judy to show that her skill set goes beyond what she is already doing. Make it clear in those evaluations that she wants a different role and can do new things. And privately, I would tell Judy to prepare to do those things elsewhere if she can’t achieve her goals at her current job.

  2. You’ve been bought.

  I love money—I’m not stupid—but I love what it can do. I love the freedom it gives me to sometimes take risks, but mostly I love how it enables me to take parts I want. On some sets the routine is, “May I bring a café mocha to your trailer, Ms. Fox?” Other movies are, “Coffee’s over there, I think there’s some left.” I do a cost-benefit analysis. If it’s work that I will wake up excited to do or that will open up bigger opportunities for me in acting, it is worth the investment of my time.

  What is your cost-benefit analysis? Does your job pay so much simply because it sucks? Are you on your phone 24-7? Thinking about work with dread when you’re trying to sleep? Or answering emails when you’re at the playground with your kid? Times have changed, and I know that’s a reality for many people in the workforce, but if all that effort is just making your boss super rich and you kind of, sort of rich, then you should examine that. If you worked out the by-the-minute charges, perhaps you would be happier making less money but having more time for yourself. Or working just as hard, even harder, on something that was yours.

  I know the pressures of being a provider. But it’s your life and your dreams. Talk to the people you’re supporting, especially your spouse, and tell them how much more you could be for them if you were working toward a real goal. Enlist them in the enterprise. Otherwise you might resent them for making you work at a job you hate, and they will have no idea they’re the reason.

  3. You’re afraid to try.

  You are comfortable in the chair you’re in. Nobody else is after it, I bet. You can practically do what you do in your sleep, day in, day out. Perhaps you mentor young people at your job, then watch them rise in the ranks—past you—while you keep doing what you’re doing. You’re pulling a paycheck, you eat at your desk, you’re fine … but you’re not. If you’re not in love with your job, you are going through the motions.

  I did stand-in work when I was starting out. That means you literally stand in for a busier actress that you resemble so they can light you, block out the scene, and have it all ready for the real star. I did that for Jasmine Guy when she was guesting on Fresh Prince. I could have settled for that and had fun stories from a studio set. But I wanted to be the real star.

  Just as I kept auditioning, I advise you to keep your interviewing skills sharp by going out for new jobs. Devote one day to your résumé. Screw laundry, sorry. It will be there. Just do it and have a trusted friend look at it because you want to get it right. It’s so easy these days to apply for jobs on sites like Indeed.com. The downside is that you are one of many, so you have to really bring it when you land an interview.

  *   *   *

  People don’t believe me now because it is such a classic romantic comedy, but I turned down the Two Can Play That Game script three times. It was a battle-of-the-sexes kind of thing. My character, Shanté Smith, was the lead, and she was just such a bitch. You were supposed to root for her to win back this guy, but what you really wanted to tell him was to run away! I also felt this was a missed opportunity to show sisterhood with Shanté’s girlfriends. They had to be real. Because a woman knows her girlfriends can sometimes be everything to her. This just wasn’t the image I wanted to portray for my first time as the lead in a movie.

  So I was straight with the writer-director, Mark Brown. “Look, until y’all write it so it’s something I can be proud of, I’m cool where I’m at.”

  I didn’t settle, because I knew it was a good idea with the potential to be great. Mark just needed to work on it. So he went back and made the characters stronger and more likable. And believable, because you have to really think that each thinks the other is worthy of compromise. Because that’s what true love is. Each person deep down thinks they’re getting the better end of the deal, right?

  I
n the end, Shanté became much more real, a lot like me, in fact. She’s an advertising exec who is sophisticated, but she can still be your girl from around the way. What I loved about the film was that it showed a side of the African American community that was not seen on-screen at the time: the upper-middle-class brothers and sisters who like the finer things. If a brother or sister had money in movies back then, he was a drug kingpin or it was a joke: Isn’t it weird that this black person has money? Not this movie. Shanté lives in a beautiful home, dresses to the nines, and drives a convertible Jaguar. As Shanté puts it: “If you haven’t noticed, I’m a sister. An educated, strong sister who remembers where she came from—and knows where she’s going.” It said to the audience, “Yes, this exists, and yes, this is possible for you, too.” And frankly, it helped the brand of Vivica Fox. You saw a beautifully dressed woman who works hard, and you wanted to hang out with her.

  I had such a vision of Shanté that me and the woman in Wardrobe sometimes had, uh, disagreements. My outfit in the opening scene was crucial. It had to be killer, because there’s a long walk through Shanté’s office that establishes her power in the firm, and also shows men reacting to my … assets. I take a springtime drive, and when I get out of the car, I have to keep the viewer’s eye as I do a monologue about her life and men. I wanted to just pop on the screen, and if I had to pay for the outfit myself, I had no problem getting out my brand-new AmEx.

  I was out shopping with my friend Cassandra Mills, this gorgeous entertainment executive, and I was telling her about the scene.

  “What color is the car?” she asked.

  “A dark red,” I said.

  “Think yellow,” she said.

  “Like ketchup and mustard,” I said. Of course. A classic contrast. Armed with my AmEx, she and I went on a hunt. We found this Easter-yellow Versace power pantsuit that was just slamming when I tried it on.