Mo’nique Stuns on the Cover of RollingOut Magazine
The fierce and fabulous Mo’nique is on the cover of the weekly edition of RollingOut Magazine.
The
47-year-old actress and comedian talks about all the drama that’s been
surrounding her for the past few months including why she believes she’s
been “blackballed” by the industry following her Academy Award triumph,
and how she and Precious director Lee Daniels were drawn into a media
firestorm for several weeks, offering opposing views in regard to exactly what happened.
She also talks about her latest movie Blackbird,
the story of a young teen in Mississippi coming to grips with his
sexuality, the film is a very timely look at homophobia and intolerance.
Read excerpts from her interview below.
On different communities in Hollywood:
“There was a time that I really believed it was harder in the Black
community because that’s the community that I’m involved with most and
that’s what I saw the most,” she says. “But once we began to take this
to different festivals around the country, and you began to hear Latin
brothers, Italian brothers, Asian brothers, Black brothers, White
brothers — and they were all saying the same thing: ‘That’s my story.’
Most were saying ‘I was thrown away by my family’ or ‘the church didn’t
accept me.’ So there was a time when I truly believed that our community
was harder, but it’s all communities.”
On the LGBT community: “I think you can take ‘celebrity’ out of it and say as a person,
I think I’m an advocate for fairness,” explains Mo’Nique. “I’m an
advocate for love. I’m an advocate for acceptance. And those things all
fall under it. But to be an advocate and say ‘at what point as a human
being, do we start treating one another the way that we truly want to be
treated?’ I know what it is to be the underdog. I know what it is for
people to say ‘We don’t want you to be a part of this.’ As I’m sure all
of us have been in that place before. So we appreciate and like getting
behind things that may change your perspective or help you think
differently or show us how to love each other just a little better.”
On getting backlash for being difficult:
“I don’t know that I would use the word ‘backlash’ because when you say
things that are true — what is a backlash?” Mo’Nique states. “It’s just
the truth. It’s not a secret, it’s not hidden. It’s the truth.
When people say ‘Mo’Nique can be difficult,’ I understand why people
can say that. When I was doing this photo shoot, I remember I
was in my dressing room and I wasn’t dressed. And the stylist’s
assistant, who was a young man, just walked into my room. It was a
closed door. Did he knock? No, he just walked in and began to put some
things up. But I wasn’t dressed. So I had to ask him to please excuse
himself and not walk into my room again — it’s a closed door. Well, he
said ‘I didn’t do that. The photographer walked me over and opened the
door.’ He goes and gets the photographer — the door is closed, but once
again, he doesn’t knock and walks in. I asked him ‘Where do you do that?
Especially if you know there’s a woman on the other side?’ I said to
him ‘If I were a different person, this photo shoot would go
differently, but I’m going to need you to excuse yourself and do this
the right way.’ Those types of things [portray] me to be ‘difficult,’
because lots of times people won’t say anything. They’ll just go along with it.”
Photo Credit: RollingOut Magazine
