Alicia Keys

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

Alicia Keys is a talent at many things: piano-playing, songwriting, and singing. Now the 27 year-old beauty seeks to add acting to her repertoire of artistic abilities, as she makes her film debut as assassin Georgia Sykes in the new crime thriller Smokin' Aces.

For the first-time film actress, when asked about how Alicia got onboard the film, she said it took a bit of in-person persuasion from writer/filmmaker Joe Carnahan to convince her to work with him.

'He came to see my show and I was performing in Anaheim,' she recollects, 'He came backstage and he was like, 'Did you read the script yet'' and I hadn't read the script yet. And he said, 'Well, this is not a punk you're going to be playing. This is not just some pretty love story that you're going to do if you're into it.' And just that alone made me very intrigued about it. Because naturally, as anyone on this planet knows, when you are told that it's something that you shouldn't do or that you wouldn't normally do, you want to do it.'

Keys also mentions that the character's unique personality also was what particularly compelled her to come aboard.

'The minute I read the script, I knew that it was so out of my element, so out of my normal character, so out of what so many people probably expected of me that I knew it was the right thing for me to do,' Alicia says, 'I wanted to break away totally from anyone's expectations. I wanted to do what was totally unexpected. I wanted to dive into myself in a way that I never ever done before.'

For many performers turned new actors, the transition from stage to screen can be a bit daunting. But for the Grammy-award-winning R&B performer, she said she welcomed the challenge with open arms and owes it all to a very simple philosophy.

'Anything that's worth it I don't think comes exactly easy,' Alicia explains, 'But to work for that was completely worth it and with everything that I do, I want to give up my comfort zone. I don't want to stay in the same place where I know myself. I like to get out of that area and challenge myself and I find the best comes from that.'

Keys also doesn't neglect to affix that she her debut film performance was boosted by a great set of team players.

'To be surrounded by such incredible actors was truly inspiring,' she adds, 'The entire cast and Joe was so motivating. I think that I'm totally spoiled because anything I do following this will probably not compare.'

Many of Alicia's scenes feature her with her co-star Taraji P. Henson, who plays fellow assassin and friend Sharice Watters. Joe Carnahan was adamant that the friendship between the characters came off as authentic and genuine as possible by the two actors.

'Taraji and I hit it off immediately. She's a wonderful lady, an incredible actress,' she notes, 'We definitely hung out. We wanted the relationship to be really authentic and it was. I did learn a lot from her, from watching her, from listening to her. We developed our characters' backstories together. So she definitely was a great inspiration for me, too.'

With fellow singers-turned actresses like Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Hudson receiving great acclaim for their screen performances, Alicia herself is deeply excited about the prospect of joining the ranks.

'I think that it's wonderful. I think they are two very talented young women,' gushes Keys, 'Dreamgirls is going to be incredible. I can't wait to see it myself. It's very exciting because I think that from the beginning of time, many of the great artists were always triple threats. They did it all and that was what you were when you were an artist. That is how you did it. And I think that going back in that direction now, to be able to encompass so many different styles and do it with so much class, is fantastic.'

With her first film under her belt and an upcoming third album on the way for this June, the always talented, yet down-to-earth performer says that as far as by which profession she now wants to be classified for, she wants to be recognized as one simple title.

'An artist,' she quips.

However, don't expect Smokin' Aces to be the only card Alicia Keys, the actress, plans to play in the near future.

'It's a film that's going to be produced by Halle Berry. It's about a woman named Phillipa Schuyler. She's incredible in the '40's. She was biracial. She was an amazing classical pianist. I knew that would never be my first film, because I've been involved so early with that. I knew that my first film would be very different from that, but something like that is in my future. As of right now, it's called Compositions In Black And White. It's based off the actual book of her life and as of right now, we're still in the first second draft of the script. So it's a little bit of time, at least a year.'