Diddy makes personal history
2008-01-25 19:08
Los Angeles - Sean "Diddy" Combs -
rapper, music producer, fashion designer, business mogul,
Broadway star - has had many career-defining moments.
This
week at the Sundance Film Festival, he had yet another.
"This a historical moment for me, my first starring role in
a movie," Combs, 38, told Reuters.
"Some of the audience is
going to want to see did I do good or did I fall flat on my
face?"
Combs was discussing his part in a new film adaptation of
the 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, which has been remade
several times for stage and screen - most recently in a 2004
Broadway production starring Combs in the role of a young,
struggling black American, Walter Lee Younger.
Now Combs is back in a made-for-television Raisin set to
air on US network ABC on February 25 to an audience that may be
unfamiliar with the story about US race relations, inner city
struggle, hopes, dreams and the strength of family bonds.
'Touching movie'
"Sometimes people come to a place and don't expect to get
the message," Combs said.
"This generation, they come for
entertainment ... then they realise, 'oh man, this movie is
really touching. It's making me really appreciate my family.'"
Combs has acted before. He had a small but key role in the
2001 movie Monster's Ball and his Broadway run in Raisin
earned him respectable reviews and won over audiences.
Yet Combs admitted to a case of nerves before his debut at
Sundance, the top US festival for independent film that has a
history of launching TV movies like Raisin with a social
conscience.
Last year, the Aids-related HBO film Life Support,
starring Queen Latifah, opened here.
Top honours
Combs said his stage experience helped train him for the
film co-starring Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald, who also
starred in the 2004 stage version and earned Broadway's top
honours, Tony awards, for their work.
"Broadway truly prepared me. It made me really go for it,"
Combs said.
"I was like, I came here to get with it and tell a
story. I have a long way to go ... but I'm swimming, baby."
Raisin director Kenny Leon said Combs brings
authenticity, discipline and a strong work ethic to the part of
Walter Lee Younger, first made famous by Sidney Poitier in
1961.
"He's not going to be defeated," said Leon. "If you work
hard, you'll find truth, and his search for truth pays off."
Walter Lee is a chauffeur living with his wife, young son,
mother and sister in a Chicago tenement.
Money changes their lives
Raisin takes place
over a brief period of time as the mother (Rashad) receives a
$10 000 insurance check following the death of her husband.
The money will change all their lives, but not before they
face several wrenching dilemmas centering on Walter Lee's hopes
for winning financial freedom and his mother's and wife's dream
of living in their own home.
The story, first written by Lorraine Hansberry borrowing a
line from a Langston Hughes poem - "What becomes of a dream
deferred?/ Does it dry up/Like a raisin in the sun?" - has
touched generations, and Combs and Leon said they are confident
that a tale they consider timeless will find yet another
audience.
"This not an old story, but a classic story," Leon said, "a
story that withstands the test of time, a story of love and
family and strength, hope and dreams."