Mariah Carey was initially told that doing the movie Precious wouldn’t be good for her career. She took on the project anyway, and showed fans a side of herself she never did before. But in order to do her role in the flick justice, the singer admittedly had to be less glamorous than her usual self. Which she admitted made her feel a bit uncomfortable.
Mariah Carey’s preparation for ‘Precious’ was hideous
Carey couldn’t have been more excited when she was cast as social worker Mrs. Weiss in the feature Precious. The critically acclaimed picture was directed by Lee Daniels, who Carey was already familiar with. She was also a fan of the book Push, which the film was adapted from. Carey and Daniels had already worked on a movie called Tennessee, which didn’t do too well critically or commercially. However, Daniels believed Precious was a better fit for the singer, and offered her the role of Mrs. Weiss on a whim.
“He said, ‘Look, I’m going to make you under and over, your hair and whatever, and you’re just going to have to deal with it. I’m going to put you under fluorescent lighting.’ That overhead lighting was not my friend, and neither was the hair. Someone who normally does my makeup described it as a Maria Carey nightmare. But in the end, it turned out to be a great gift Lee gave me to be able to go that far away from who I really am,” she once said in an interview with the LA Sentinel.
She went into a little more detail about her transformation for the film in an interview with The Telegraph. There, she described just how difficult it was to prepare for the film.
“I had dark circles under my eyes and a little mustache. The hair was disgusting, and the clothes were horrible,” Carey said.
“I really had to let go of any vanity and not care about my good side or my bad side,” she added. “I had to strip down everything I am and become a completely different woman and put myself in her shoes and understand how it felt every day to be with people just asking you for money. Now that’s something I can relate to.”
‘Precious’ gave Mariah Carey the opportunity to really be an actor years after she was given a Golden Raspberry Award
Carey’s initial foray into acting didn’t start well. Before Precious, perhaps she might’ve been most known for her role in the 2001 feature Glitter. The movie was slightly similar to Carey’s own origin story, focusing on a fictional singer’s rise to superstardom. It failed to meet expectations both critically and commercially, and many felt Carey’s performance left a lot to be desired.
Carey was so embarrassed by the film that she wouldn’t even mention the movie’s name. Her experience on Precious, however, couldn’t have been anymore different from Glitter. Unlike in Glitter, where Carey was playing a glamorous star, Precious allowed Carey to truly act. It also might’ve helped redeem Carey’s Glitter performance, since she received massive praise for her portrayal of Mrs. Weiss.
“It’s still kind of a sore spot for me, but I think I learned something from it, which is that it is all about the material,” Carey said about Glitter. “I wanted to do independent movies, but people wanted to put me into something where I was playing a star. So I think that was forced upon me rather than me being allowed to do what I really wanted, which was to lose myself in a character and really be an actress.”
