Eleven-time Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys says acting in feature films is a walk in the park compared with the mental and physical rigours of making an album.
"Let's put it this way, the hours are way better on film," chuckles the 28-year-old, who co-stars in The Secret Life of Bees (which opened Friday) alongside Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson and Dakota Fanning. "People will say, 'Oh my goodness, you must be exhausted.' And I'm like, no! You guys should do music. There's no weekdays off. No weekends off. There's no holidays.
"My music is very personal. It's very much something that is put together by me from beginning to end. When you pour your heart and soul into creating an album and doing the tour, I have to say it's almost a relief to be on a film set where you're kind of a tool of the director's vision," adds Keys, who has sold 30 million albums and received the most nominations (five) for the 2008 American Music Awards.
Keys's beauty is ethereal, almost delicate. But she's tough as nails. Smart and ambitious too. She makes no qualms about the fact that she always demands the best of herself - and those around her. "My main goal with music is to make it come from a truthful, authentic, honest place," she says in an interview during the Toronto International Film Festival. "That's also my goal for film. So when you hear it, you feel it. That's what it all boils down to for me. Making people feel something."
New York-born Keys has been steadily rising up the acting ranks, with roles in the 2006 thriller Smokin' Aces and last year's The Nanny Diaries, opposite Scarlett Johansson. To stay sane while juggling her breakneck schedule, she says, she compartmentalizes her music from her acting. "I do one or the other," the three-octave singer says. "I don't do both at the same time."
"There are many similarities between acting and singing ... and I guess the biggest is that you just get used to performing and putting yourself in vulnerable positions. With my music, I do that every day. Every night I get on stage, everything can go wrong. But I have to be willing to be vulnerable. I think that informs the acting as well.
"But the main difference with film is it's not directly my life," she says. "When I walk onto a set, I'm not writing the script. I'm not producing the movie. I'm not directing it. I'm just acting in it. So in a way, I get a chance to become just this person. And it's also interesting to be able to express a side that's not my life. Acting gives you a sense of empathy for other things."
The Secret Life of Bees is based on the novel by Sue Monk Kidd. In the film, which also co-stars Paul Bettany and Sophie Okonedo, Keys plays June Boatwright - one of three cultured sisters coming of age during the civil-rights movement in 1960s South Carolina. June, a burgeoning black-power activist, is a formidable presence in the beekeeping household. And she distrusts the story of a lost and broken girl (Fanning) who shows up on their doorstep with her housekeeper/companion (Hudson).
While the subject matter was often violent, the story also has lots of humour. On set (they shot in North Carolina), Keys says Queen Latifah (or "La" as she calls her) kept everyone in stitches.
"I knew Latifah and Jennifer a little bit before [we started filming]" the actress explains. "But this experience kind of solidified our understanding of each other. It was just so much fun, and we would laugh all the time. Who's the funniest? Oh, Latifah. Something is really wrong with her," laughs Keys, whose mom is Irish-Italian and father, Jamaican. "She lights up a room. She's just a really great, fun person."
Keys adds that the Queen has been a pivotal role model, inspiring her to stretch into different creative genres. "La is obviously a pioneer in hip hop and the urban music genre," she says. "It's just amazing to watch her. I learned from her how to blaze my own trail and find my own way."
The actress says it was fascinating to shoot this civil-rights movie at the same time that Barack Obama was trying to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination. "Seeing the completed film for the first time the other night, it really struck me that the fight for our country now ... is even bigger than just race," adds Keys, a graduate, at 16, from the prestigious Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan. "It's like a fight to get past stereotypes and certain old beliefs."
During a separate interview, Queen Latifah, who has a hip-hop album coming out in December, says she jumped at the chance to play the part of August Boatwright, a successful black businesswoman.
"I'm one of those people who has never wanted to play a slave," Latifah says. "I never wanted to play, 'Oh Massa, don't beat me.' You don't need me to do that. You've seen it. You've seen the heavy hand of racism. You've seen the bigotry, the burning, the killing, the murder. And I think you've seen enough of it.
"There were black people in all kinds of respected positions back in the days of segregation. They set the stage for Obama today."
Key's next film projects are a remake of Bell Book and Candle, and a starring role as the biracial musician Philippa Schuyler in Composition in Black and White. In the near future, she says she also plans to write a musical for the theatre.
"I just want to continue to ascend," the young woman says. "I want to be a better musician. I want to be a better actor. I just want to be better in what I do - every time I do. Like the Queen, I want to blaze my own trail."
Gayle MacDonald