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Andre 3000 and Big Boi of Outkast -- PHOTO BY CHRISTINA RADISH / Agency Photos |
In Universal Pictures and HBO Films’ Idlewild, Andre Benjamin and Antwan A. Patton, better known to their legions of fans as Andre 3000 and Big Boi of the multi-platinum selling music group Outkast, synthesize drama, music, cinema and style to bring the tale of shy piano player, Percival (Benjamin), and his friend Rooster (Patton), the showy headliner and manager of the Southern speakeasy Church, to life. A tale of the loves and ambitions of two struggling Prohibition-era performers, told through intricate musical numbers and vibrantly choreographed dance sequences, the multi-Grammy award winners believe that the 1930s American South was the ideal setting for their ragtime-infused hip-hop vision.
“Anything we do, we try to make sure that we’re being true to ourselves, and that’s being an artist,” Benjamin tells MediaBlvd Magazine. “But, we also know that it has to sell. We want people to come to the theater to see it, but at the end of the day, if people just talk about it and say, ‘This is a necessary film and it’s something that needed to be made, and had to be made,’ then we’ll be happy. All the chips were stacked against us, so if nobody comes to the theater, we just know we had a great time doing it.”
{quote_top}Most of the music is a mixture of contemporary hip-hop, classic blues and swing music, with classic songs from legends such as Cab Calloway and Bessie Smith scratched and mixed to give the soundtrack a modern feel. One of the biggest challenges with Idlewild was the fact that Outkast wasn’t finished with all of the songs before shooting began.
“When we first started to shoot the film, we were like, ‘We really don’t have the music together right now,’” Patton tells MediaBlvd. “They said, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll work around it.’ As soon as we got on the set, after the first week of shooting, they said, ‘In two days, we need a song for this scene right here.’ We already had some songs prepared, but the storyline was so strong that you really didn’t have to rely all the way on the music. So, we got a chance to work on them both, at the same time. But, if we had to do it again, we would definitely have all the music ready first.”
Idlewild writer-director Bryan Barber met Benjamin and Patton in 1993, during his time at Clark Atlanta University’s School of Film. Outkast soon gave Barber the opportunity to hone his directing skills on such videos as “Hey Ya!,” “Roses” and “The Way You Move.” Since then, the in-demand video director lent his unique vision to such artists as Destiny’s Child, Nelly Furtado, Kelly Clarkson, Missy Elliott and, most recently, Christina Aguilera, for her “Ain’t No Other Man” video.
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Outkast performing live at the Smoking Grooves tour held at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, Calif. on July 19, 2002. PHOTO BY CHRISTINA RADISH / Agency Photos |
“When Bryan was writing the script and he set it in the 30's, style wise, he knew that it would take the audience to a whole other world,” says Benjamin. “I think it was a great choice because, right now, in the times we’re living in, especially as black people, you don’t get to see people with class on the screen. As far as the music, we knew that it was set in the 1930's, so we kept in mind, when we were writing and producing, that this was a period piece. But, at the same time, we’re Outkast and we’ve got a responsibility to live up to our fans, so we had to make sure that it was modern as well. When we did that, it brought something new to it, so it was not just a 1930's pic. In my opinion, the reason why musicals don’t work that well now is because people always want to do the music of old, and people are not listening to that music now. You want to do the music of now to have it make sense.”
Having worked on the idea of a musical since the Outkast album Aquemini came out in 1998, the duo knew that they were not looking to do a break into song musical, but rather a performance-based film that was built around the music. What Barber, Benjamin and Patton came up with was a film about two individuals who go on two separate paths, but cross each other and help one another get to the next chapter of their lives.
{quote_middle}“Most people have seen the videos for ‘Hey Ya!’ and ‘Roses,’ and there’s all this energy and this character dancing around,” says Benjamin, in regard to his public persona. “In real life, I’m not dancing around all the time. Percival is closer to Andre Benjamin. We’ve known Bryan since we gave him his first shot on our video, so he knows our personalities, he knows our lives, and he knows things about us that people don’t see, so he pulled from those parts and created these characters, but also gave us the room to play. Percival is an extreme version of the side of me that people don’t get to see. I’m not moping around like Percival all the time, but in every character you play, you’ve got to find something that connects to you to make it real.”
“Bryan took our personalities and exaggerated them, and gave us room to play and do whatever we wanted to do with the characters,” adds Patton. “By him knowing the intricate details of certain parts of our lives and how we’d react to situations, he hit it right on the bullseye.”
In much the same way that their last album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, was a 2-CD set, in which Benjamin and Patton each had their own disc to showcase their music, Idlewild follows Percival and Rooster on independent paths. “The type of movie Bryan wanted to make was not the buddy-buddy type of movie,” says Patton. “I think it’s more interesting if it’s two stories being told with a brotherhood that’s established, and then the stories come in, intertwine, and then go back out. That way, you get to know each character individually.”
“Both characters are really tight,” adds Benjamin, “but they don’t have to be in the same space. We’ve been friends since the 10th grade, before we started doing music, film or any of that, so that’s always going to be there, no matter what.”
{quote_bottom}The fact that the Georgia natives share so little screen time will naturally fuel the fire of the rumor that Outkast are drifting apart professionally. But, according to Benjamin and Patton, that just isn’t true. “As far as the rumors go, We’ve been doing music for 12 or 13 years. We ain’t shot nobody, we ain’t killed nobody, we ain’s slapped nobody, we didn’t go to jail, and we ain’t sleepin’ with Paris Hilton, so what can you talk about? We most definitely are not breaking up or drifting apart. We ‘re just grown men now. We don’t hang out the same. We hang out, but we don’t hang out every day, like we used to, and we don’t live in the same house, like we used to.”
Adds Patton, “We’ve been saying for years that it’s about the music. Our personal lives are our personal lives. As far as the brotherhood we have goes, we had the brainchild for Outkast. We made that idea and that principle has never left us. We created this, and nothing music or movies can do will break this up. Andre is my dog, for life.”
