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SITTING
in a SoHo coffee shop in Lower Manhattan, Norah Jones
looked across the table at the elegant and mysterious
Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai, who sat quietly behind dark
sunglasses that don’t come off, even indoors. A few
months earlier, Jones didn’t even know who Wong was, but
the hugely respected filmmaker had a question for the
singer. Eventually, Wong posed his heavily accented
query:
“So,
Norah, do you want to act?”
As is
often the case for the 29-year-old musician—whose
musical collaborators have ranged from Outkast to Herbie
Hancock—Jones greeted the inquiry with a simple “Why
not?”
“I
thought, ‘If I say no, I might regret it,’” Jones said
at a favorite hangout near her East Village apartment.
“And if I say yes, I’ll have an experience. If I stink,
whatever! I’m a musician—I’ve got a day job. What can I
lose here?”
Two
years later, the fruit of their unlikely pairing is
appearing in theaters in limited release, expanding
further in coming weeks. My Blueberry Nights is
both Jones’s debut as an actor and Wong’s first
English-language film.
For the
naturally shy Jones, suddenly becoming a movie star (and
acting alongside Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Rachel
Weisz) is a step just as unexpected as her emergence as
one of the most successful recording artists of the
decade. (Her 2002 debut album, Come Away With Me,
won eight Grammys and has sold more than 16 million
copies.)
Jones is
now sporting a short hairdo and a fresh tattoo on her
right arm, her third, which she only briefly waves at,
saying, it’s “personal.” She nevertheless oozes an
unmistakable air of comfort with herself. Only a few
years ago, she was reluctant to stroll out from behind
the piano while performing.
Making
the film, she says, “really helped that side of me. It
helped my confidence, making music videos and doing this
last tour....I enjoyed it so much more. I was so much
more confident. I see that side of me as something that
hopefully will just get better with age and practice.”
Jones
acknowledges taking a handful of acting lessons several
years ago when a few filmmaker friends wanted to make
“tiny” independent movies with her. But Wong told her
not to take any lessons, to preserve her naturalism.
It’s
easy to see commonalities between Jones and Wong. Though
Wong is the far more stylized of the two, they both like
to linger in the breezy interludes between moments.
My Blueberry Nights, Wong says, is a film about
distance—particularly that between Jones’s character and
Jude Law’s.
Wong
also is not your average director. Though he had to deal
with American unions and production rules for the first
time, he’s known for his open-ended, improvisational
style in which plans change frequently.
“He
makes films like a jazz musician,” says Jones, who
didn’t see a script until just a few weeks before
shooting. “I just had to blindly trust him.”
The
resulting film, which opened the Cannes Film Festival
last year in a version 20 minutes longer, was called
dissatisfying by The New York Times. The Los Angeles
Times and AP critic Christy Lemire were both unimpressed
by Jones’s debut, labeling her “bland” and “outmatched,”
respectively.
For
Jones, though, critical kudos were never the goal.
“I’m not
trying to break into the movie business,” she says. “I
just wanted to have a cool experience.” |
