  DOLLY PARTON as G.G. Sparrow, KEKE PALMER as Olivia Hill and QUEEN LATIFAH as Vi Rose Hill in Alcon Entertainment's "JOYFUL NOISE," a Warner Bros. Pictures release. |
Director Todd Graff admits he cast them as much as a "sight gag" as for their voices. And to see Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah enter a room together is like a pop-icon hallucination/mashup.
Even in stilettos, buxom Dolly, 65 years old and 4-foot-11, stands a head shorter than the 41-year-old Latifah (or Dana, as she's called in everyday life).
Yet there's sweet admiration on the face of the Oscar-nominated hip-hop Queen as she watches this tiny force of nature during a two-hander interview.
By accounts, even their respective L.A. and Nashville-based "posses" got along, "my team of people and her team, they just all clicked," Latifah says. For her part, Dolly compared her naturalness of working with Latifah to her chemistry with Kenny Rogers.
On screen, however, they are enemies. In Joyful Noise (in theatres Friday), a comedy-musical about a Southern gospel choir's soap-opera-ish ascension to the national Joyful Noise gospel championship in L.A., Latifah is Vi Rose, an old-school praise-the-Lord type who resists the pop approach favoured by rich, raging granny G.G. Sparrow (Parton) and her talented but cocky big-city grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan of Broadway's Bonnie And Clyde). Think of it as Glee for Baptists.
To sour the well further, Randy has eyes for Vi's daughter Olivia (Keke Palmer of Akeelah and the Bee).
The contretemps culminates in a food-fight in a restaurant, with G.G. hurling entrees and Vi putting a chokehold on the country music legend.
"She got the deadliest aim, but I got the deadliest headlock," Latifah quips. "The short ones are always quicker, but once you get 'em, you got 'em."
"We had fun doin' that fight," Parton says. "It was two days on our schedule, but we were in the real fight for a day and a half. We were wore out with it."
"You tossed an awful lot of spaghetti," her co-star offers.
"I kept slidin' around in the spaghetti, 'cause you know me. I gotta have my shoes. It's a wonder I didn't break my wrist or something. But that was some fun."
They come from different worlds, although Latifah, who developed physically early (she had breast reduction surgery in 2003), says she looked to Parton as a role model for being unselfconscious.
"I always had nice boobs. I got 'em doctored some, but I always had nice ones," Parton says matter-of-factly of her look (which she says she patterned after "the town tramp" in her home town of Sevierville, Tenn. "I always thought she was the prettiest thing. And people would say, 'Oh, she ain't nuthin' but trash.' ").
"I had to starve (to keep the look), I gained a bunch a weight when I continued to eat like a country girl. So I stayed on a low-carb diet."
"But you fed everybody else," Latifah chides her.
"I cooked her some dumplins," Parton confirms.
"She cooked me some mean chitlin dumplins, boy, and that fudge!" Latifah goes on.
"She brought fudge to the set! Who works 16-hour days and goes home and makes fresh fudge, peanut butter and milk chocolate? It was like crack on the set. When they hear about the fudge, it was, like, 'Where the fudge is at?' "
Joyful Noise is targeted to a "family values" audience, and its stars had already been through a round of interviews with "faith-based press" before getting around to heathens like me. On that score, both Latifah and Parton had more in common, with gospel music in their backgrounds.
"I grew up between New Jersey and Virginia and Maryland, and you went to church on Sunday and vacation Bible school in the summer," says Latifah.
"And my aunt directed a big mass choir in Virginia. And I loved going to choir rehearsal with her and just watching how they built a song.
" 'Praise Music,' no matter what denomination of Christianity it is, it has a feeling to it. But Gospel just has this thing about it. The only time I can honestly say I almost caught the Holy Ghost -- and maybe 'cause I just think too much -- was in choir rehearsal with my aunt, and this song had just moved me. I think it was a Clark Sisters record. And I was only 12 years old. And this feeling came over me and I just started to lose it. It scared me and I pulled back.
"I had to have a talk with my grandmother about that. She told me to just let it happen next time."
As for Dolly, God was her co-pilot. Palmer, a now-18-year-old child actor was working without her mother on-set for the first time. "And I was really glum, and Dolly looks at me and says, 'You miss your mama?' And I said, 'Yeah,' and she said, 'Well come over here and give me a hug. I'm gonna have God send your mother's love through me.'
"I'm just like, 'Where'd that even come from?' It made my heart really happy and showed the kind of person she is. She and Dana both show respect to everybody, the producer, the janitor, whatever. It was that kind of set."
