Marlon Wayans has been acting on TV and film since the ’80s, but no set was happier than Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” biopic.
“[He] used to come up to me every single day, hug me, kiss me on my forehead and say, ‘This is the happiest set I’ve ever been on,’” director Liesl Tommy told Page Six.
“He would walk around [on set] and point [at people] and say, ‘You are so happy right now!’ It was true… We used to come on set with a smile on our face in the morning and leave with a smile on our face at night. It was a wonderful feeling,” she said.
Wayans plays Franklin’s ex-husband Ted White in the film, and Franklin handpicked Jennifer Hudson to portray her when Hudson was starring in “The Color Purple” on Broadway in 2015.
Coincidentally, “We were neighbors on Broadway. I was [directing] ‘Eclipse’… I did not realize while we were working on Broadway was when Aretha asked her to do that. It was very magical,” Tommy said.
The first-time film director told us she took page out of Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino’s book when she cast herself for one scene.
“I just woke up one morning, and said I’m going to cast myself in that part. I never met Aretha Franklin. I never got to tell her how much she meant to me, and so I thought if I play this role and say these words to Jennifer playing Aretha, I get to [tell her] what her music means to me,” Tommy said.