NEW YORK—They don't give out Oscars for Best Team Player. If they did, Beyoncé Knowles would have to be the leading candidate for honours this year.
The former Destiny's Child lead singer is in the unusual position of having to defend herself for not acting like a selfish diva — or at least not enough to satisfy the gossip hounds of the New York Post.
The Manhattan tabloid greeted the cast and crew of Dreamgirls, the screen adaptation (due out Dec. 25) of the hit Broadway musical, with a story claiming rookie Jennifer Hudson makes the top-billed Beyoncé "look like a pretty extra" in their shared struggles for Motown glory and girl-group supremacy. Hudson's striving Effie gets more screen time than Beyoncé's late-blooming Deena in the early part of the film.
The story is absurd, but mention of it brings groans from the tightly knit members of the Dreamgirls posse, who are frustrated that Beyoncé is not being given her due.
She willingly accepted a role that required her to dial down her glamour and her multi-octave vocal range in the movie's first two acts, so as not to upstage Hudson's character.
"Please! I think it's so crazy," writer-director Bill Condon says of the Post slam, taking his turn doing round-table interviews on a press day at the Regency Hotel.
"And you know what? To me it's a testament to what Beyoncé pulls off in this movie. She had to go in the opposite direction. She had to convince you that she was someone who was not special. That she was not beautiful. That she was the wallflower. That's hard."
Others second that emotion, including Hudson, an American Idol runner-up who is enjoying her personal acclaim, but who winces at the perceived slight towards her friend Beyoncé. Would it really have been better, everyone asks, if Beyoncé had demanded a rewrite of the Dreamgirls story, as many other starlets would have, just to puff herself up?
If Beyoncé is feeling hard done by, she's not showing it. Arriving for her interview in a ruffled cream blouse atop designer jeans (from her own Deréon label collection), the Texas-born beauty, 25, is the picture of grace and casual elegance.
"I knew the risks before I took it," Beyoncé says of the role, mincing no words. "I read the (stage) script. I knew that Deena was not the underdog. I knew she didn't sing (the show-stopper) `And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going.' I knew that all of our parts are very important, because it's an ensemble cast. I knew she wasn't the lead. It's not about her life."
She looks completely credible when she adds, "And I didn't care about that, because I don't have to prove that I can sing. I have nine Grammys. I don't have to prove that I'm a star, because I already am. I wanted to prove that I can act."
Dreamgirls is actually Beyoncé's fourth feature movie. But her two biggest previous roles, as singer Xania in The Pink Panther remake earlier this year and as Foxxy Cleopatra in Austin Powers in Goldmember four years ago, had her playing exaggerated comic interpretations of her public image.
Dreamgirls is something else entirely. The role of Deena is loosely based on a real person: Diana Ross, the leader of superstar trio The Supremes. The job required her to dim her usual glam and to sing without her typical confidence, since Deena is part of a group, the Dreams, that for the early part of the movie is still struggling to win ears and audiences.
"I thought this part was incredible, because out of every character, it has the biggest range and it's the least like me," Beyoncé says.
"I mean, I'm way more powerful and big than the character, way stronger and in control. So it was a challenge for me and exciting for me to show myself in a different light."
If she wasn't perturbed about Deena being upstaged by Effie, Beyoncé did have qualms about people mistaking the Dreams (and the Supremes by extension), with Destiny's Child, the recently disbanded pop trio that sold 60 million albums and singles during its 15-year reign atop the pop charts. "My biggest concern was people getting Deena confused with me. Because from the outside looking in, you see that I started out in a group and became a solo artist, and my drive and Deena's drive (are) very similar, but it really stops there ...
"Which was why I wanted lose 20 pounds (to erase her famous curves for a more '60s-inspired, Twiggy look as she ages from 16 to 36), because I wanted to lose every trace of what I'm known for, and why I sat and worked so hard with the acting coach, and why when I did the songs I didn't treat them like performances. Singing was a piece of cake. Learning the choreography, a piece of cake. The hard thing was, because I didn't have my voice to depend on in the singing, I had to do something else. So I had to go through and make sure Deena had pain behind her eyes."
Audiences will be able to judge for themselves how successful she was. But early reaction at Dreamgirls advance screening has shared the applause with Beyoncé, Hudson and their co-stars Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy. Despite the ensemble emphasis, there has been serious talk of Beyoncé gaining a Best Actress Oscar nomination, with Hudson a safe bet for a Best Supporting Actress nod.
Beyoncé has one other tough customer to please: Diana Ross. The Supremes being has let it be known since Dreamgirls premiered on Broadway in 1981 that she's not pleased with the story. Yet word is she's a fan of Beyoncé's, who is quick to return the love.
Asked to name her favourite Supremes tune, Beyoncé instead rattles off a Ross solo tune, "Love Hangover." She gives it up for the Supremes song "Love Child" after a bit of prodding.
"Well, I met her and she was very, very nice, which made me feel great, because I want her to like me because I like her so much," Beyoncé says, smiling at the memory.
"But I don't feel like this movie is about her. I think the things that happen with Effie and Deena, I don't think that ever happened to her. I think she's stronger than Deena."
