It's a big month for Jill Scott. Her new album is enjoying success and critical acclaim, and she's making her film debut in Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? She plays a character fairly close to the issues she's singing about. Shiela is trying to save her marriage while her pig of a husband cavorts with a young, skinny slut. Shiela ultimately triumphs, as Scott has by turning her pain into art.CraveOnline: How did you make the transition from musician to actor?
Jill Scott: I don’t know that it’s really different, really. When I write a song, I tap into the emotion and the feeling and then I use the emotion to write the words. It’s the opposite when I act. I use the words and tap into the emotion. It’s basically the same for me in a lot of ways. I don’t know how different it is. CraveOnline: Well, there's a song on your new album called Celibacy, need we ask where the words came from?
Jill Scott: I used the reality and wrote a song about it. That’s pretty much how it goes with songwriting. Having a feeling or emotion, a thought, a breakthrough, you have these emotions and you think about it, write it down and share it with everybody. [Tyler Perry] gave us great words, great line to say. All I had to do, for me anyway, I guess all of us, you just tap into the places that hurt you or wounded and you reveal them. So that’s it I guess. CraveOnline: What was the timeline of shooting this movie and doing the album? Was there any overlap?
Jill Scott: I was still recording in Atlanta. Yeah, they were all over each other. The album and the movie were all over each other. I think that's right.CraveOnline: So did the experience of the movie influence your writing?
Jill Scott: Having the experience of being in the film or having the divorce experience? Because that influenced everything. The divorce did it quite frankly. It influenced everything that I write. Everything that I was lacking, I wrote down and I sang. All the emotions that Shiela was going through, I tapped into my own experiences, to reach these places, to cry unabashed, to feel so low. And when we were finished shooting, I still felt it. It was hard to let go of these things. Sometimes when you're doing a play or you're acting or something, you fall into the character and you play it and then when they say cut, you walk away. This wasn't like this. It wasn't that way for me. I felt it later. I felt it at night. I felt it before I got to work. Richard T. Jones was such an amazing actor that he made sure I did. He wanted to hurt my feelings. Now it wasn't Jill he was trying to hurt but to get to Shiela, he had to go through me and he definitely hurt me. He wanted to and he did. CraveOnline: Did you plan for both of these to come out at the same time?
Jill Scott: The universe has been real kind to me. The album started in January of 2006, and I had been working on it up until I got this role. I didn’t expect to get it, and I didn’t know that it was coming and I got it and I did it. And immediately after that, I got a role in Africa to do another film, and that took me away from the album. I didn’t expect that at all. And so I went to Africa for three months, and I did that film, and I had to piece the album together by phone because I couldn’t get email at all. I came home and the album came out, and then mixed the promotion for the album as well as this film, that I’m very proud of, all at the same time. It’s complete divine intervention. To be getting a divorce and doing a film called Why Did I Get Married, you don’t plan a divorce, you don’t want a divorce, divorce is not something you but this is the way I see life. Whatever happens in my life, whether I stand up or I fall down, whatever the case, I’m going to use it in my art. Why? Because I’m an artist and I have to. So the highs, the lows, the peaks, the valleys, whatever, it’s all going to go into the art, whether I’m singing or acting or whatever. Everything has led me to this place.
CraveOnline: Is a film showing African Americans as couples working through relationships a more positive reflection than some of the drug/gang movies?Jill Scott: It’s a different kind of reflection. We continue to see the same reflections again and again. Everybody is in some kind of drug warfare. Everybody is in some kind of negative something. To see people who are established and are married and are working at it, to see that, that’s a reality for a lot of us.
CraveOnline: We know you as a singer. What is your acting background?Jill Scott: I was working as a poet and I had a really good friend of mine named Ozzie Jones who is a director in Philadelphia. He said, “I think you should act.” So I said, “Okay, but I don’t know anything about it." So I found a fellowship in Philadelphia at a great theater company and basically did a fellowship and an apprenticeship. For two years I cleaned toilets and mopped floors and hung lights and built sets and did whatever they asked me to do to get free acting classes because I couldn’t afford university. So I studied Shakespeare and Sondheim and improv and whatever they had to offer and just took it and ran. It took time because I was doing Rent and then I got a record deal and that meant I had to stop doing plays so I could make the first record, Who Is Jill Scott?
CraveOnline: How did you hook up with Tyler Perry?Jill Scott: I was working at French Connection in Philadelphia. I’m a Philly girl. I was the manager [laughs] at French Connection and Tyler comes in and he’s looking for a shirt. He’s looking for a shirt and I’m showing him shirts, but he doesn’t buy anything, but he’s got a nice sense of humor. He’s funny and a pleasure to talk to so we talked and then he says, “So, what are you doing later?” and I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “Do you want to see a play?” And I said, “Okay”. I didn’t know what that meant but he only gave me one ticket. So I go to see the play and I don’t remember which one it was at the time. I remember this: it wasn’t the okey doke, it wasn’t the Chitlin Circuit. It was smart, it was funny and it was thoughtful and it wasn’t a whole lot of “hee hee” and “ha ha” and “Yeah girl, heh, heh, heh.” You see it all the time. There is always the flaming hot fire hairdresser with the curling iron in his hand the whole time. This wasn’t that. And I thought, “Oh, this was really nice.” I get on the bus and I am looking through the playbill and I see this guy. This guy, he’s the director and the writer and I thought “Oh”. That’s how Tyler and I met each other at the French Connection. At least 12 years ago.
CraveOnline: Did you keep up a relationship over time?Jill Scott: No, we didn’t exchange numbers. When I looked in the playbill and saw his picture I couldn’t forget that. I thought “Oh, that guy”.
CraveOnline: Considering the title of the movie, would you get married again? Jill Scott: I'd get married because I want to share all of this with someone. I just mean who I am and the blessing that I have, I want to share it. That's why I would get married again.
