NEW YORK CITY — Rumor has it that numerous baby girls are being named Beyonce. For late arrivals, pronounce it with three syllables: Be-on-say. The only explanation for an infant proliferation of Beyonces is the young pop singer Beyonce Knowles, who achieved recording stardom as the main attraction of the trio Destiny’s Child.
Miss Knowles, starring in the new gospel-influenced musical comedy “The Fighting Temptations,” looks and sounds as if adoration is the last thing she feels comfortable with. Impeccably gracious but obviously fighting off some kind of constriction in her voice, she never quite relaxes with a press audience that seems to be auditioning as press agents. (The most provocative question: “Tell us, Beyonce, how do you manage to stay so focused?”)
Born and raised in Houston, Miss Knowles made a genial film debut in the Mike Myers farce “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” portraying a dishy superagent called Foxxy Cleopatra. “Temptations” is the first feature that showcases her singing, although she did collaborate with Loretha Jones on a TV film, playing the title character in “Carmen: A Hip-hopera.”
Miss Knowles confirms that a churchgoing background made the premise of “The Fighting Temptations” more appealing. Set in a small town in Georgia, the film revolves around a Baptist congregation that welcomes renewal in the form of a revitalized choir. Miss Knowles plays a single mother, Lilly, who has drifted away from the flock, partly because of the malice of a tyrannical, disapproving matron played by LaTanya Richardson. Lilly does sing blues at a local nightclub and agrees to return to the choir when it becomes the reclamation project of a former childhood companion, Darrin, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., a prodigal returning home under a cloud of disgrace.
“I grew up in church,” Miss Knowles explains. “I know how church people can be, good and bad. I also grew up around really positive women. My mother owned a hair salon, and a lot of her customers were single mothers. I liked the idea of playing someone who valued her faith but didn’t have a perfect life, who had experienced the kind of problems women go through.”
The musical emphasis of the project also proved irresistible to the performer. “R&B comes from gospel,” Miss Knowles observes. “I liked the script and the idea of working with Cuba. But there were also all these singers and song genres coming into one story. I thought the whole idea was nice and uplifting and refreshing. Here was a chance to perform with gospel singers like Shirley Caesar and Ann Nesby. You don’t imagine that anything like that can come together so early in your career. I haven’t been jumping at scripts. I’ve been real picky. I want to be around a long time and be respected as a singer and an actress, like Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. I want to be around a long time, and one way to do that is work with people who are so good that they take a lot of pressure off you.”
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