Before Gabourey “Gaby” Sidibe walked into director Lee Daniels’ life, he was, as he said, “depressed.”

He’d been searching high and low for the perfect girl to play Claireece "Precious" Jones in the small film he was making based on the novel, Push, by Sapphire, and after auditioning 500 of them, he was still without his lead.

Read More

The lure of movies—and their directors—is that they are always capable of surprising us. Lee Daniels made his directing debut in 2006 with a film called Shadowboxer. Although it starred two Oscar winners, Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr., the bizarre melodrama was poorly received by critics and audiences. Daniels’ career could have ended right there.

Instead, when his next movie, Precious had its world premiere at Sundance in January, it became one of the few films in the festival’s history to win both the grand jury prize and the audience award. “It was a little scary to show the movie to all these lily white people in Sundance,” Daniels admits. “But the response was very gratifying and shows that the story is universal.”

Read More

Beyond the red carpets and talk shows, Oscar buzz and celebrity cameos, Precious remains rooted in two key figures: its titular protagonist Claireece “Precious Jones” and Sapphire, the woman who wrote Push, the nearly 15-year-old novel on which the film is based. Precious, the character, played by Gabourey Sidibe is a flow-chart of human misery. Slipping through the cracks of a social services system fated to fail her, she is taunted for her size, teased for her dark skin, and nearly tossed aside for her lack of schooling. But mostly, Precious is invisible—a faceless, voiceless outlet for her father’s lust, her mother’s rage, and a crack-fueled 1980s culture of expendability.

Read More

Stephen Holden, The New York Times:
“Mo'Nique…gives an award-worthy performance in Precious that makes Mary's monstrous behavior not only understandable but also almost sympathetic.”

Betsy Sharkey, The Los Angeles Times:
“Mo'Nique's complete immersion into the role of mother as abuser and betrayer, riding a river of rage, won her the dramatic acting award at Sundance and has her name surfacing in awards talk now.”

Read More

While Oscar buzz for Precious swirls mainly around director Lee Daniels and actors Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe, one delicious thing about the film is getting to see two giant pop stars transformed into utterly unglamorous creatures during cameo appearances on screen. Mariah Carey plays a social worker; Lenny Kravitz, wearing hospital scrubs, plays a nurse.

Read More