Princess Monique On Her Directorial Debut ‘Seasons of Love’Posted by Wilson Morales
November 23, 2014
Airing tonight on Lifetime TV is Seasons Of Love, Starring LeToya Luckett, Taraji P. Henson, Cliff “Method Man” Smith and Gladys Knight. It premieres Sunday, November 23, at 9pm ET/PT
Directed by Princess Monique, from a screenplay by Sharon Brathwaite-Sanders and Peres Owino and set in the picturesque backdrop of New York, “Seasons of Love” is a romantic, soulful holiday drama about two people who struggle to find love against the odds, while reconciling with the past and learning the true value of family.
Also featured in the film are Cleo Anthony, Shannon Kane, Ana Isabelle, Robert Christopher Riley, Elan Even, Tobias Truvillion, Richard Portnow, and Elizabeth Ho.
Kyla (LeToya Luckett, Single Ladies) and Amir’s (Cleo Anthony, Divergent) new romance is thrown for a loop when Amir’s father (Richard Portnow) suddenly passes away and Kyla’s ex, Miles (Rob Riley, Hit the Floor), comes back into the picture. The two struggle to determine what truly matters to them in this story of life, love and family. Taraji P. Henson stars and executive produces, while Gladys Knight and Cliff “Method Man” Smith also star.
For Princess Monique, it’s been a long journey not only getting this project off the ground, but fulfilling her wish to becoming a director. From her days as a model to guest starring as an actress on sitcoms, to producing entertainment events, and then finally taking classes and making a short film that won several awards, this Cleveland, Ohio native has seen all facets of the entertainment world, but the chance to make a feature film was the opportunity she had been waiting for.
Blackfilm.com recently spoke with Princess Monique on her journey to making her directorial debut with ‘Seasons of Love,’ which airs tonight and was recently the opener for the 17th African American Women In Cinema Film Festival in New York.
How did you go about in getting the directing gig for this?
Princess Monique: Well, I had the script myself for ten plus years. It was written by Peres Owino and Sharon Brathwaite-Sanders, who are really good friends of mine. They had written some other short films for me. Actually, Sharon’s the original screenplay writer. She pretty much was like, ‘I got something I want you to read. Just think about.’ And I liked it. And I was like ‘It needs a little bit more or something.’ So we brought Peres in and they, together, came up with the script that you see today. And so after they gave it to me I just shopped it around, shopped it around, heard, ‘No, no, no, no, no’ a million times. But I just knew, it was my gut told me, that this was supposed to be my first feature film. It took ten years but the payoff that I’m getting, and obviously with the talent that we have in the movie, as well as that we have African American female writers, director, producer, actress, all on the same film is like…it was supposed to happen this way.
You’ve worked as a producer on projects. How challenging was this project as your directorial debut? Were you ready to direct? Had you taken classes?
Princess Monique: Oh yes. I’ve been so ready to direct since I was born. I say that because when I was a little girl my mother used to have these talent shows at our apartment complex to keep the kids busy. And I’d direct the talent show. I didn’t think I was directing. I just thought I was bossy and that I thought everything was perfect. Then I grew older and I did modeling and acting. And I knew entertainment was my calling but I just didn’t find my lane yet. I moved from Cleveland to Los Angeles I got a chance to work with Chip Fields-Hurd, Kim Fields’ mom. I was in an acting class and started putting a film together for the students and she kept telling me, ‘You know what, I think you’ll be a great actress if you keep training. But I think you’ll be a better director. You just naturally have a knack for it.’
And I’m like, ‘What? That’s weird.’ So she was like, ‘Okay. She let me shadow her on a lot of shows like ‘The Parkers’ and ‘101’ and ‘Girlfriends’. I did a short film called ‘The Call’. At that time, I also had no training at that time. It was just my experience of the industry and my ability that I read a lot of books. Being on the set with her, I learned a lot. ‘The Call’ won a lot of awards with that short. So I said, ‘Okay, if I’m gonna really do this, I gotta, you know, know my craft.’ So I enrolled in Los Angeles City College and got a film production degree from there and I graduated top of my class. I was really serious about this is what I’m gonna do. I did a lot of short PSAs, music videos, commercials, but that doggone feature was haunting me. I was like, ‘I gotta do a feature. I gotta do a feature.’ And it seems like no one really takes you serious as a director unless you do a feature. I just pursued it and pursued it and pursued it and finally, the right thing came together for it to happen.
You have a cast that features some familiar names Taraji P. Henson, LeToya Luckett, Gladys Knight, Method Man, and a few others. How did you Taraji come onboard? She’s not always attainable to doing smaller projects as opposed to studio films.
Princess Monique: Well, Taraji and I have a mutual person in contact, which is Vincent Cirrincione. He manages Taraji and I’ve been trying to get him to manage me as a director for years. That wasn’t really his lane and he kept saying, ‘Well, the only way I’m going to manage you as a director if I can help you get a job.’ I hadn’t seen Vincent in years and I literally almost ran into him as he was crossing the street in Atlanta, Georgia. I’m like, ‘Vince’. And he’s like, ‘Oh my God. Princess. I haven’t talked to you in years.’ He’s like, ‘Hey, you still got that script?’ Cause I had let him read it years ago. He thought that there was something there. When I saw him at that time he said, ‘You know, Taraji really wants to executive produce a project. Why don’t you send it back over to me and I’ll send it over to her and see if she likes it?’
Luckily, for me, she liked it. From there I met with Taraji and was able to talk about the film. What she loved about it more than anything was the opportunity to give new talent a shot and expose their talent because there were so many characters in the story. That’s really how it started with her. We just really bonded on that. I felt like there’s plenty of people that aren’t in positions like her, that are reaching back and pulling each other up. The fact that she was so willing and that was her motivation, and I was like, ‘I love you’. That’s how it all started with Taraji.
Besides Taraji, can you talk about directing veterans and new talent?
Princess Monique: Why this took ten plus years for me to get this done is because if I not had the background from having mentors like Bill Duke and Pamela Fryman who took me on their set and showed me how they work with their actors; and if I hadn’t had that background, it probably would have been a disaster. We were on a very, very tight schedule, to the point that we didn’t even do a table read. Every film gets a table read. For me to be able to connect with this many characters and this many people, and to make sure they relate to their characters, I just personally took everybody one on one. I asked the question like, ‘How do you see this character?’ They would tell me their way and I’d tell them, whether it’s what I see as well. Most of them really got the characters from the script but I gave them a lot of other layers and depth to go on. I guess I came so willing to do whatever it takes to make this a good movie.
Cleo Anthony, this is his first feature film and really for his first feature film, you would never know it. He was so comfortable and so relaxed. It was wonderful. Then Shannon Kane, okay, she is like our, we call her Julia Roberts, but I don’t like to call her that because Shannon Kane is Shannon Kane. She’s beautiful. Her spirit just lights up the place. Everybody wants to work with her again. Elan Even plays Jarvis, her husband. He’s sweet, humble, willing to work hard, good and we sort of know this from other things but the people who we may not know them by name, I believe and I know, that you will know them by name because they’re that talented and that dedicated to being great.
What’s the appeal to the film? Is it the talent or the story?
Princess Monique: What I love about the story is that it’s literally is a story about love and it’s for everybody. I was just saying, this particular project, that I don’t look at it as a Black film. I look at it as a people film. I definitely will do stories about the Black experience and they will be catered to that audience because that is my experience, as well. With this particular film, what I loved about it is, I don’t care who you are, that you have experienced some of the things that the characters had went through or you know somebody who’s experiencing these things. You see different ways of getting through those mountains that you have to go through. Our tag line is, ‘People come into their life for a reason or a season.’ It’s just so true. We meet people all the time, and people that really stay with us, if we’re lucky, in our family. Most of our friends, they come in for a reason or a season. This is the type of movie that highlights those things. What I also like about this story is that it’s so open ended that you want to see more. You’re definitely satisfied with the story in itself but my thing is I would love for this to be a series. I would love to really eventually see different sides of the characters and why they made the choices they made in their lives. The playback stories are so deep. We’re really just more introducing you to these characters, but there’s just so much more to them all that people would relate to.
In a year where we’ve seen other black female director Amma Asante (‘Belle’), Gina Prince-Bythewood (‘Beyond The Lights’), and Ava Durvernay (‘Selma’) receiving a lot of attention, what does that say to you that this is the right time where there are a lot more female directors with people taking notice as opposed to previous years?
Princess Monique: I have give a little credit to Keenen Ivory Wayans. He told me about three years ago at the American Black Film Festival. I don’t know how I ended up at this table but I was there with Bill Duke, Robert Townsend and Keenen Ivory Wayans. How lucky am I? How did this happen? I remember to just trying to be a fly on the wall to this greatness and listen to them talk about film and Keenen said that this is the time of the African American woman. This is the audience that is not being catered to the most, that you haven’t heard their voices the most. This is their time and if you start rising up now you will be one of the people. He looked at me in my face and said, ‘What are you gonna do about it. This is your time. If you don’t see it.’ When he said that to me it just was like an a-ha light bulb moment. I started looking around and start seeing like Mara Brock Akil and Shonda Rhimes. All these women starting to come up and I was like, why can’t I be a part of that? I’ve done the work, my God. I even got coffee for people. I had to walk their dogs on set or whatever I needed to do to just be around film. So why shouldn’t I be part of that. So I focused more than I ever had focused before and the result is ‘Seasons of Love’.
