PRECIOUS
Push pulled me in immediately. It’s one of the few books that, upon finishing it, I turnedright back to the first page and read it again. I was on a beach during a girls’ trip with myfriend Rhonda, who insisted I read it. The voice created by genius author Sapphirecompletely took me away. She gave such singular and significant expression to a girl anda world that are often invisible. It was challenging and intensely beautiful material.
I first worked with Lee Daniels on Tennessee, a film I did in 2008. He was theproducer, but he basically ended up directing me, and he totally got me. I was thrilledwhen I learned he had acquired the rights to Push, though not at all thinking I would beinvolved.
A trusted friend, actress and director Karen G, was working as an acting¹ coach withsome of the cast, especially the young women, and she let me know that something reallyincredible was happening on the set. One day, out of nowhere, with one day’s notice, Leeasked me to play the social worker character, Ms. Weiss (a role originally intended for thephenomenal Helen Mirren). I was over the moon, but a little freaked out too. I had a littlemore than one day to prepare. I learned my lines and did some deep, quick-and-dirtyimprovisation and backstory building with Karen. I loosely based Ms. Weiss on theupstate New York “Sweetie, it’s not normal” therapist Tommy and I used to see.
The entire process of filming was renegade and brilliant. Lee believed in me, and Ibelieved in him. I believed in the remarkable² cast, and of course I believed in thebrilliance that was on the page. Lee’s major concern was that I didn’t “look like MariahCarey.” He insisted on no makeup³ and even had a prosthetic nose made for me. We didn’tend up using it, but the application aggravated⁴ the rosacea around my nose, which,ironically, really worked for the character (now, ain’t that some peculiar⁵ mixed ish, tohave both keloids and rosacea).
I remember once, on set, Lee caught me applying a little blush and screamed, “NOMAKEUP, Mariah!” Another physical note he gave me was to “walk flat-footed!” (oh,these tippy toes). I was confident in my grasp of the Ms. Weiss character; the mostchallenging work was not to be emotionally moved by Mo’Nique’s amazing and powerfulperformance. Ms. Weiss had to be detached, but the human being in me struggled withthat. There was a moment when Mo’Nique’s

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