^TM

BeautyShop: a well styled movie with a Humorous Twist

Reviewed by Madelyn Miller, the TravelLady

Has hair replaced sex and violence as the new entertainment focus? In the past week, I saw a touring production of Hairspay, Miss Congeniality and BeautyShop.

And I am glad I have been watching these things in the dark—because all this focus on primping, spraying and teasing and cutting has given me a slight inferiority complex about my low maintenance, natural do.

How much fun do all these people have in the salons? Should I be spending more time there than in theatres?

Gina Norris (Queen Latifah) is a long way from the Barbershop – now she’s in Atlanta making a name for herself at a posh Southern salon with her cutting-edge hairstyles. But when her flamboyant egotistical boss (Kevin Bacon) takes it one criticism too far, she leaves his salon to open a shop of her own, taking the shampoo girl (Alicia Silverstone) and a few key clients (Andie MacDowell, Mena Suvari) with her.

Gina buys a rundown salon and inherits an opinionated group of headstrong stylists (including Alfre Woodard), a colorful clientele, and a sexy upstairs neighbor (Djimon Hounsou). It’s a rocky road to fulfilling her dreams but you can’t keep a good woman down. .  And you can’t keep a shopful of outrageous women from speaking their minds!

The acting throughout is fabulous and there is a laugh a minute. I was sitting next to a man who seemed to enjoying it at least as much as I was. Based on his reaction, one might think that Chick Flicks are going mainstream.

Setting Up Shop

The runaway success of the Barbershop films was a surprise to many – but not to MGM.  From the very beginning, the studio believed in the projects and saw great potential in a film franchise about a place almost everyone has to go, full of characters everyone feels like they know.  Audiences saw their own lives reflected in the films’ comedy and loved hearing the characters say the outrageous things they’d been thinking.  As soon as the first film opened, the studio and producers put Barbershop 2: Back in Business on the fast track to production.

For the sequel to Barbershop, bringing back Ice Cube and the rest of the gang was a given, but the films’ characters were mostly men and the comments were from a man’s point of view.  The studio and filmmakers knew it would be great to give the ladies a chance to speak their minds.  While preproduction for Barbershop 2 was underway, the filmmakers were also busy with plans to build a Beauty Shop.  And there was only one woman they wanted to anchor the project: Queen Latifah.

“Latifah is just a great lady,” says producer David Hoberman.  “She has a great spirit and brings great energy to the set.  She just makes everyone feel good when she’s working.  For Beauty Shop, we had to have someone of her stature and talent, and we only wanted her.  We were thrilled when she saw the potential in the project and agreed to join us.”

“Latifah and I work really closely together,” says producer Shakim Compere.  “We wanted to find a film that would be hilarious and a lot of fun to work on, but also had a lot of heart.  We loved the idea of Beauty Shop and knew Latifah would be able to bring her own flavor to the piece.  It was a great fit.”

The filmmakers decided to launch the Beauty Shop idea by working a character named Gina into the Barbershop 2 script.  In that film, Gina worked at the beauty shop next door to Calvin’s (Ice Cube) Barbershop and a past was established between the two of them.  To show that Gina wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, a hilarious war of words with Cedric the Entertainer’s Eddie was included that became one of the highlights of the film.  Audiences responded with huge laughs and confirmed the filmmaker’s intuition: the world was ready and wanted to see more of Latifah’s character.  The foundations for Beauty Shop were laid, and filming began soon after Barbershop 2 opened in theaters.

Not only is Latifah the lead in the film – she also donned a producer’s hat for the project.  Her instincts and trust in herself are what empowered her to take on such responsibility.  “I love being able to take something from A to Z,” she says.  “I don’t consider myself a control freak, but I consider myself someone who never wanted to be controlled.  From day one it’s been about trying to express myself.  There’s no greater feeling than taking an idea and seeing that idea all the way through to fruition and presenting it to people, having it accepted and be a success.”

Once Latifah joined the project, the other main course of business was to find a director.  The filmmakers quickly decided on Bille Woodruff and felt he had the skills to steer the comedy – and handle a cast full of women.  Known for his award-winning work on music videos for artists like Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Outkast, Missy Elliot, and TLC as well as the Jessica Alba starrer Honey, everyone was excited when he signed on.

“Bille is precious,” says Latifah.  “I’ve known him for years from his music videos, so I thought it’d be cool for him to do something like this, and he’s definitely used to working with women.  I thought whoever directed this movie needed to have the ability to communicate and keep everyone together and on the same page.  You have to have a certain sensitivity to be able to understand where we’re coming from sometimes.  Bille’s got it.”

As for Woodruff, it was Latifah that made him want to take on the project.  “I’ve been a fan of hers and we’ve been friends for a long time,” he says, “but we’ve never worked together.  It was a great opportunity for us to come together creatively and do something fun and special.”

Woodruff and Latifah wanted great comedy, but they agreed the film also had to have a relevant, positive touch.  “We were both interested in doing something that would have the laughs,” Woodruff continues, “but we also wanted to make sure we had other things going on.  The comedy is there, but there are other things happening, things that can make you think.”

Meet Gina

Describing her attraction to the project, Queen Latifah says one of the big draws was her character, Gina.  “I like to play strong characters who are vulnerable at the same time,” she says.  “Gina reminds me a lot of my mother, a lot of myself – she reminds me of woman like my mom and me and friends of mine and single parents who are out their raising their kids and have to wear many hats.  I like to see someone go through challenges and overcome them, and that’s what Gina’s all about.”

The other aspect of the script that appealed to Latifah was the strength of Gina’s dream to open her own shop.  “You’ve got to have a dream,” she says, “You have to decide, ‘Here’s something I really want to accomplish and here’s how I’m going to do it.’ There’s a lot of people out there with dreams that never get anywhere.  You have to dream, because then you’re not limiting yourself in what’s possible, then you fall in love with it, have a passion for it, and you make it a goal.  And you go for it.”

Latifah says the thing that most gives Gina her need to succeed is her love for her daughter, Vanessa.  Vanessa’s the reason Gina leaves Chicago for Atlanta – Vanessa is accepted at a prestigious music school – and she’s the reason she works so hard to make it on her own.  Gina wants to set an example for her daughter, which is also why she decides towards the beginning of the film that she’s had enough of Kevin Bacon’s Jorge, who owns the salon Gina works in at the beginning of the film.

“Jorge is one of those guys who is probably talented, but somewhere along the way became the boss who used everybody else’s talents to keep everything going,” says Latifah.  “Gina knows how good she is at what she does and she’s willing to deal with a little bit for the sake of her daughter, but at some point it becomes a question of principle.  She’s just not going to have someone disrespecting her too much.  Gina can go toe-to-toe with the best of them and she can take a punch – but she can give one, too.  That’s what motivates her to keep moving.”  Gina leaves Jorge’s with nothing but her talent, her pride, and a dream.  After securing a small loan and working to spruce up a run-down shop in Atlanta’s urban center, Gina’s Beauty Shop opens its doors.

The Shop Girls

To play the diverse, colorful characters at Gina’s, the filmmakers filled the cast with an eclectic, accomplished and hilarious roster of actors.  The mix of talent is exciting and interesting, and Queen Latifah was thrilled with the final result.  “We wanted to open this movie up to everyone,” she says.  “Gina’s whole idea is that a woman should be able to come and get her hair done no matter who she is, what color she is or how old she is, and be able to relax and have a good time.  It was great to be able to cross cultural lines and have everyone be a part of this.

“I find that people are people, for the most part, and there’s good and bad in everyone,” Latifah continues.  “We’re really a lot more alike than we are different.  Even our differences are things that can be appreciated if we were to actually communicate and get to know each other a little bit.  I’ve been around so many different kinds of people that I’m used to experiencing and enjoying other cultures and ways of thinking.  I wanted our shop to be like that.”

Representing the best of Southern sass, Alicia Silverstone plays Lynn, the initially softspoken shampoo girl at Jorge’s salon who dreams of wielding her own shears.  “Lynn is a real country bumpkin from Blueridge, Georgia,” says Silverstone.  “She’s very bright and spunky and innocent, and really positive – she does everything she can to make the best out of every situation.”  Lynn gets her big break when Gina takes a chance and lets her “cut some heads” – and its Lynn’s affection for Gina that gives her the resolve to try.  “I think Lynn is really surprised at how Gina is so nice to her and treats her with so much respect,” Silverstone continues.  “Lynn doesn’t usually get a lot of respect.”

Once Lynn gets a chair at Gina’s, though, she has to earn respect all over again – in an urban salon she’s out of her element, and many of the new girls aren’t quite sure what to think of her.  It’s watching Lynn try to win the girls over that gives the film lots of laughs – and lots of heart.  “From the get-go, nobody likes me at Gina’s,” Silverstone says. “They don’t know what to do with the fact that Lynn is white and so bubbly and happy and excited.  She’s got no ghetto in her at all, and these girls are a little rougher on the edges.  They underestimate Lynn, but she’s got her own edges as well, and they have to learn that.”

Not only did Silverstone get a great role, but she gets great hairstyles as well.  Once Lynn lets her hair down (in more ways than one), she sports some of the most wacky ‘dos in the film.  “I get my hair crunked out,” Silverstone laughs.  “I make a transformation to fit in a little better, so I start having my hair done in these crazy styles.”

Silverstone loved her Beauty Shop experience.  “It was really a very luxurious environment to work in,” she says.  “I feel really blessed and honored to be a part of this.  The audience is going to experience a really good time.”

Andie MacDowell echoes Silverstone’s sentiments – she loved working with the cast.  “It’s just a really nice group of people,” she says, “and a wonderful atmosphere.  Very cool, very artistic.”  MacDowell plays Terri, a rich Southern patron of Jorge’s shop who makes the jump to Gina’s place because only Gina knows how to really tame her hair.  Nervous at first, she soon finds she enjoys the new women she meets.  They’re not afraid to tell her like it is – and Terri’s in need of a little straight talk.

“I live in North Carolina, so it’s similar thing,” she says.  “You go into a beauty shop and sit down with someone and it’s almost like talking to a therapist.  You sit down and someone touches you – they touch your head, they touch your hands if you’re getting your nails done – and after you go week after week, you start to open up.  Those people are your friends and therapists.  They make you feel good.”

MacDowell enjoyed how Bille Woodruff encouraged the cast to speak their minds and improvise.  “Bille was very relaxed about it and let us go on a little bit, which I really appreciate,” she says.  “It gives you a feeling of creativity and freedom and spontaneity.  Bille’s very clever in keeping the energy on set in a nice place, keeping a nice vibe.”

As for her hopes for the film, MacDowell says, “I hope people laugh a lot.  I think we need to laugh, and there’s some substantial depth to what they’ll be laughing at.  To me that’s the best comedy, when you laugh at the things that ring true.”

Four-time Emmy Award winner and Oscar® nominee Alfre Woodard pulled out the stops – and a leopard-print smock – to play Ms. Josephine.  The actress loved the character and found inspiration in Ms. Josephine’s pride and colorful ways.  “Ms. Josephine is Afro-centric, but not in a kind of Brooklyn way where it’s really righteous and culturally correct and specific.  She just takes whatever she wants from everywhere.  If it has a leopard on it she thinks it’s from the motherland,” Woodard laughs.  “Doesn’t matter if it was made in China.

“She’s comfortable in her skin,” she continues, “and has been around long enough to know all the gains that have been won, so she’s much more of a feminist than some of the younger women in the salon.  She’s New Age in a very country way; she’ll take in any new idea as long as she can make it work for herself.  So in a sense she’s probably the most progressive person in the salon.  She’s got a sense of history and culture, but what’s fun about her is that it’s filtered through how she wants to receive it.”

One of Ms. Josephine’s most effective – and hilarious – traits is her penchant for spouting Maya Angelou poetry.  “She’ll start reciting poetry in a fit of passion or whenever it’s appropriate,” Woodard says.  “She brought poetry into that shop.  She’s self invented in the most organic way.”

Most of the girls react against Gina trying to change the nature of the shop when she first buys the place, but Ms. Josephine is up for the change.  “She loves the sense of community that Gina brings,” Woodard says, “the fact that yes, we are all in here and have individual clients, but we’re a village.  She’s proud of this young woman who has a dream and is stepping out and doing it, because most people never do that.”

Mena Suvari plays Joanne Marcus, another one of Jorge’s patrons that make the switch to Gina’s.  “Joanne is an Atlanta socialite,” says Suvari.  “She is somebody who’s very superficial, but with Gina it’s different.  She respects her and has a lot of fun with her, and obviously Gina makes her look good.”

One of the reasons that Joanne and the other women love Gina is her special homemade conditioner, affectionately known as “hair crack.”  Though she doesn’t often have selfless motives, Joanne actually ends up offering to help promote Gina’s conditioner by sending it to a friend at CoverGirl in the hopes they’ll start making and marketing it.  “Joanne works hard to impress people,” says Suvari, “and it’s somewhat genuine when she has the opportunity to help Gina out with her conditioner.  But it’s also like ‘Look what I can do.  Look at all the people I know.’”

When asked whether the film was fun to make, Suvari says, “Oh, my God – it’s beyond.  It’s one of the most fun things I’ve ever worked on in every respect.  So many vibrant characters, and in between each take they’d be playing music.  It’s just something I’ve never experienced before.”

She also says she learned a lot from the shoot.  “If anything,” she says, “I’ve learned how I love transformation so much more than I ever knew.  Playing with my character, playing with her hair, she gets a breast augmentation – it was all so much fun.”

Golden Brooks plays beautiful, outspoken stylist Chanel – the kind of person you always find at a beauty shop.  “Wherever you go,” says Brooks, “there’s always that one outspoken woman who’s the truth serum, the one who’s going to give it to you straight from the hip.  That’s Chanel.”  Chanel holds her head high and refuses to let anyone make her feel anything less than perfect.  “She used to be a dancer down at the Dirty Trunk and she’s very proud of that.  She does not apologize for anything.  She sees life through one view, and that’s her view.”

Chanel’s self-confidence can lead to prickly exchanges with other women at the shop – especially with Suvari’s Joanne.  “Joanne and Chanel don’t get along because they seem like polar opposites, but they’re actually very similar.  We butt heads.”

Brooks loves that Beauty Shop is a comedy firmly based in reality – that’s why she thinks it gets such solid laughs.  “Cheap jokes are exactly that: cheap jokes.  I think to spend your dollars, you want to feel you’re learning something – not in a way where we’re teaching, but learning in that it’s something you haven’t seen before.  This is a kind of humor that is real, that is politically aware, humor that involves what you do in the day-to-day.  I think people will be surprised and empowered by the film.

“It’s like putting Al Sharpton, George W. Bush, Don King, and Sistah Souljah in the same room,” she continues.  “You’re going to get some funny stuff.”

As sassy, 7-months pregnant stylist Ida, Sherri Shepherd gets a lot of laughs.  Shepherd was thrilled to co-star with Queen Latifah.  “It’s been a dream of mine to work with her,” she says.  “My entire career, she has always been like a mentor to me; she’s always represented women so well.  I just screamed when they told me I got the part.”

Shepherd had a lot of fun with her character’s look.  “I’m very flamboyant as Ida,” she laughs.  “My hair matches my mood, which matches my clothing.  Every color I put on, my hair changed.  In real life I’m a baseball cap girl, so this was so much fun to become someone else.

“My husband loved it,” she continues.  “He wanted me to bring Ida home and leave Sherri at the set.”

Keshia Knight Pulliam plays Darnelle, Gina’s sister-in-law and the wild child of the bunch.  “Darnelle’s in a rebellious stage, trying to claim her independence,” Pulliam says.  “Everyone has gone through that point.  The thing I love about this character is that she’s a little in left field to begin with, but she definitely comes back to center.”

Pulliam says beauty shops play an important part in African American culture, and she loved helping create Gina’s shop for the movie.  “Being a black woman,” she says, “hair is something that’s very connected to the culture.  The beauty shop is more than a place where you get your hair done.  It’s where all the latest gossip is, you may meet some guy – it could be anything.  It’s more like a second family.  When I was growing up, my mother actually owned a salon, so I have inside knowledge of what really goes on.”

Every great movie needs a great antagonist, and the filmmakers found a one: Kevin Bacon hams it up as Gina’s nemesis, shop owner Jorge Christophe – a one-name Atlanta stylemaker with a dark secret.  “Jorge’s got a healthy dose of vanity, sells his own products, spends a lot of time in his tanning bed – it’s a lot of fun,” Bacon laughs.  And what ultimately makes the man?  For Jorge, it’s his hair.  “His hair is long and luxurious,” says Bacon.

Describing Jorge and Gina’s firework-filled relationship, Bacon says, “Jorge wants to have a relationship with his clients where they are completely dependent on him.  He has little ways of insulting them so they always come back.  They need him – they’re like his children.  Gina is starting to undermine that because they’re seeing what a great job she does as a stylist.  He’s threatened and he fires her, so she starts her own business – and he tries to bring her down.”

Though Bacon’s done dozens and dozens of movies, Beauty Shop had a few things he’d never seen before.  “It was the first time I’ve ever seen hairstylists as technical advisors on a film,” he laughs.  “Usually it’s like some drill sergeant, or on Apollo 13 it was an ex-astronaut.  It was a total riot.”

And what would a comedy be without a little bit of romance?  Gina has a lot of work to do to get her shop up and running, but she’s got a sexy electrician named Joe upstairs to help her out, played by Academy Award® nominee Djimon Hounsou.  At first Gina’s only interested in Joe for his electrical skills, but soon the sparks can’t help but fly.

Describing his character, Hounsou says, “Joe is originally from Africa.  He came to the Western part of the world for a better life and meets Gina when she takes over the beauty shop.  His apartment is right above it.”  In addition to his electrician work, “Joe is a musician as well, a jazz pianist.”

Hounsou had a wonderful experience and enjoyed being one of the only men in the cast.  “We had a great time,” he says.  “It was the lightest set I’ve ever been on.  There’s so many ladies here – it’s been fun listening to them joke about things.  Sometimes it’s hard to get the shot done because everybody’s cracking up.”

Hounsou also has nothing but praise for his on-screen love interest – working with Queen Latifah was a pleasure.  “Wow, what a classic lady,” he says.  “I’ve never worked with anybody who on- and off-screen had such an amazing personality.  I fell in love with her as a person – she’s a wonderful woman.”

“Overall, this film was a blast to make,” sums up director Woodruff.  “The cast had a great time and everyone really bonded.  It was a great experience.  The only thing that’s kind of a shame is that so much really funny stuff happened when the cameras weren’t rolling – we couldn’t fit it all in!”

Boot Camp

To prepare for the film, the actresses had to learn their way around a salon from a pro – technical advisor Randy White spent several days with the actresses teaching them how to look like they were cutting hair.  How did White get the job?  He does director Woodruff’s hair.

“We went to beauty boot camp,” laughs Latifah.  “We went to Golden Touch salon in Inglewood, California, and our homeboy Randy showed us what to do – how to cut, how to color, how to perm, how to style, how to exactly hold scissors.  There’s a technique to everything, and you have to learn because it needs to look authentic.  There are a whole lot of hairstylists out there; there are about 90,000 beauty shops in this country.  We knew people would know when we weren’t cutting right, so we wanted to make it look as realistic as possible.”

There were varying degrees of “hair familiarity” among the cast.  “Keshia Knight Pulliam was the only person there who really knew how to do hair, being that her mom owned a salon at one point,” says White.  “Everyone else had to start from scratch.”  Learning by doing, they all had to pick up scissors and get to work.

The cast quickly found that cutting hair is much harder than they thought.  “I’m so glad I’m not a hairdresser,” says Silverstone.  “I had attention deficit disorder in boot camp.  I’d go numb and feel like I was in science class.  I have much more respect for hairdressers now.  It’s a real skill and such an art.”

“You know what I realized from that whole boot camp experience?” says Sherri Shepherd.  “It is NOT what I was called to do.  The first 20 minutes I was like ‘My back is hurting, okay?  I’m an actress, not a hairstylist.’  They thought they had free labor, so they had me washing all these people’s heads.  I was like ‘Wait a minute!  Nobody’s paying me!’  Nobody was tipping me!  It was hard – but we learned.”

            And did anyone mess up?  “I cut somebody’s hair too short, but I didn’t tell her,” grins Shepherd.  “I just combed it over, and hopefully she won’t know.  Maybe she’ll think it was Queen Latifah, because we both worked on her hair.  Sounds better to say Queen Latifah cut her hair wrong than me.”

Shop Talk

The haircutting and styling is authentic, but there was one other key salon ingredient the filmmakers were intent on capturing: the shop talk.  The Barbershop movies are notorious for their frank talk, and Beauty Shop is no different.  Often the actors would get on a topic and improvise in character, the more outrageous the better – and they had a fabulous time doing it.

“The bikini wax thing was a serious discussion,” Latifah laughs.  “Men crying was definitely a discussion.  Politics always becomes a discussion, especially in an election year.  And of course, image.  Image is always something that comes into play.  We got into ‘Why does so-and-so look like that?’ and ‘Who needs a makeover?’  With the exception of male issues and political talk, we actually kept it pretty shallow – just where we wanted it to be,” she laughs.

Alfre Woodard says, “You know, with beauty shops, that’s like saying ‘my poker game.’  When you sit down to a poker game, there’s a certain atmosphere and there’s rules and decorum.  You switch into poker game mode, and that’s kind of the same with a beauty shop.  There’s always this thing that happens when you get in there.  You get hyped, you get chatty, and you talk a lot.  It’s like stream-of-consciousness, but in a communal sense.  If you disagree, you’re hollering ‘No!’ and if you’re agreeing you’re screaming ‘Yes!’  There’s a heightened sense of hysteria.”

“You have customers that can talk, you have all the stylists that can talk, and people talk about all kinds of different issues,” director Woodruff says.  “We touch on everything from hybrid cars to sex and relationships.  There are a million things to talk about, and we tried to touch on a diverse representation of some of the things people want to speak their minds on.”

Beauty Bites

Alicia Silverstone: “Hair really frames your face and can change how you look.  When you’re having a bad hair day, it’s not fun.  Most of the time I just put my hair in a ponytail – easy, low maintenance hair.”

Andie MacDowell: “I have very, very, very curly hair now, but when I was little I had straight hair, and I had a pixie and it was fabulous!  There’s no way I could cut my hair in a pixie anymore because I’d look like Bozo the Clown, but I liked the pixie.”

Alfre Woodard:  “My mommy had a hair salon.  I remember – this is one of my earliest memories – I sat and watched her as she did a woman’s hair.  She washed it, she dried it, and they were sitting there chatting the whole time.  So I sat there watching them, and the world of grown women seemed so wonderful, you know?  I just thought, “Oh, to be forty…”  Well, by the end it’s been around two hours that she’s been working on this woman’s hair.  She turned the woman around and she was looking in the mirror, and I was playing in the shampoo bowl, and before I knew it I turned the bowl and it went flying around spraying water over this women’s face and head.  Her hair was hanging wet again.  My mother turned to look at me, and the woman’s mouth was open – and I just flew.  I wrecked that hairstyle!”

Mena Suvari:  “I remember crimping a lot.  I remember being 11 and there was this big craze to crimp your hair – and fry it.  You pretty much fry your hair when you’re crimping.  I also remember I really wanted lavender hair when I was sixteen, and my mom wouldn’t let me.”

Sherri Shepherd:  “I had very thick hair and my mother hated to do it because she would press it and then I’d go and play and it’d be this big Afro.  So my mother would just let it go crazy, or she’d try and braid it and one braid would stick up and one braid would stick down.  That’s the way I’d go to church.  I looked like a doggone crazy person.  I looked like Chaka Khan at three.”

Keshia Knight Pulliam:  “When I was in college, when a girlfriend needed a trim or to put a perm in or flat-iron her hair, I did all of that.  Even in my mom’s salon I’d help out doing whatever when I was in high school.  I even tried to cut my own hair, but I realized the reason you let someone else cut it is it’s really hard once you get to the back.  And one side was shorter than the other.  After that, I left that part to the professionals.”

Kevin Bacon:  “The thing I hated was that the barbers would take the clippers and shave the back of my neck.  The feeling of that – those tiny little hairs in the back of my neck and the sound of the clippers – I was terrified of it.  I thought he was going to cut me.  And I didn’t like that thing they put around your neck; I’ll never forget that piece of paperish stuff.  I hated going to the barber.”

Bille Woodruff:  “I’ve had all kinds of hairstyles.  My favorite I think was when I copied Prince’s hairdo when he had ‘Little Red Corvette’ out.  I had my hair down over one eye.  Kind of crazy, but it was my favorite.”

Back to TravelLady Magazine