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WILL WHITNEY RETURN TO ACTING? Movie producer Lee Daniels wants Houston in his upcoming film about pedophilia.
by Renee E. Simms

Whitney Houston
(Feb. 10, 2003) WILL WHITNEY RETURN TO ACTING? Movie producer Lee Daniels wants Houston in his upcoming film about pedophilia.
*Movie producer Lee Daniels likes dark stories. He produced “Monster’s Ball,” the film that was an Oscar vehicle for Halle Berry. “Monster’s Ball” was about death row, prison culture, interracial romance and it was set in a South that looked haunted. Remember the suicide scene? Or what about the accidental death of Leticia’s son? The movie was one bleak moment after another and without the benefit of a soundtrack.

Daniels is preparing to shoot a new film that may be as dark and controversial as “Ball.” It’s called “The Woodsman” and it’s about pedophilia. Daniels wants to cast Whitney Houston in the lead, female role.

“We’re in heavy discussions with Whitney Houston. I don’t know for sure that we’re going to hire her,” Daniels says, “[but] she is absolutely aware [of the offer].”

In this movie, the lead male character (who is not yet cast) works at a lumberyard. He thinks about having sex with children.

Obviously a film of this nature is bound to raise a few eyebrows, and Daniels says he is somewhat scared about making the film.

“I go back and forth about whether it should be made,” he says. “When the writers pitched the story to me I hung the phone up. I think there are certain [stories] that don’t need to be told.”

Daniels decided to make the movie once he read the script.

“Three-quarters of the way into the [story] we learn the guy that we like, the guy we’re rooting for, is a pedophile. It’s the first time we understand about pedophilia. We never see him touching a child at all. It’s all in his head.”

Because Daniels believes the role is Oscar material and because he wants more black actors to win Oscars, he considered casting a black male for the part.

“Whoever plays this role will get an Oscar,” he says.

But when Daniels researched pedophilia he says he learned that blacks make up less than 10% of pedophiles.

“Statistically, blacks don’t commit pedophilia so it wouldn’t be true,” he says.

So the male lead will probably not be black. But back to Whitney Houston.

“She’d play the female lead. No one else agrees with me [about casting Houston] but no one else thinks I should do the film,” Daniels says.

It’s been eleven years since Houston’s acting debut in “The Bodyguard” with Kevin Costner nevertheless Daniels thinks the singer has ‘chops.’

“She has moments of brilliance like Diana Ross,” he says. “She was in heavy discussions for ‘Monster’s Ball.’ I want to give it to her because she’s the underdog right now. I feel for her. I want to give her a shot. She’s got a problem. My brother, my cousin are riddled with that disease, [with] addiction.”

Although filming begins in two-three weeks Daniels is not worried that he has yet to hire the lead actors.

“We didn’t have half of the cast for ‘Monster’s Ball’ until the very last minute,” he says.

Ashley Judd (“who is not chopped liver,” Daniels remarks) is also being considered for the female lead so there is a Plan B, so to speak.

Daniels is patient. He’ll wait for the right actors like he waited for the right film to produce. He says that he sifted through many bad scripts including “Good Times: The Movie,” before he settled on “The Woodsman.”

“As a black man, I want these people [in Hollywood] to see that we’re going to go right back to the Oscars and with something that’s off-kilter,” he says.

NEWSFILE: 10 FEBRUARY 2003