For Mariah Carey, the road to transforming herself into Ms.Weiss, an ally of the struggling protagonist in Precious, was hard — and hairy. Very hairy. To judge by her recent comments to the press, the diva’s notable performance as the weary, Rayon-clad, makeup-free social worker is dominated in her mind by the presence of one rather intense fake mustache, in addition to the other elements of the look that director Lee Daniels insisted on (he had Carey’s breasts bound and bags added to underneath her eyes, for instance). “I could see her hands shaking†as he makeup went on, Daniels told the L.A. Times. Hear Carey’s laments in the following quotes.
“They totally changed me. I didn’t want to look in the mirror. It was beyond dressing down because Lee Daniels loved to torture me. He really wanted me to not just look plain, he wanted me to look homely. That was his goal. He wanted a mustache and an under-the-eye thing and the bad hair. Now I see why he wanted it because people didn’t recognize me and he didn’t want me to take people out of the movie because they were seeing Mariah Carey.†[Parade]
“But it was cool because a lot of people say they don’t recognize me in the film. They don’t know it’s me and, to me, that was a great gift that [Lee] gave me to be able to really go that far away from who I am.†[RS]
“I am glad people are telling me they don’t recognize me … But when it comes to my scenes, I get like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I can look.’†[LAT]
“This is so ugly, man, I don’t know what to do.†[People]
“Somebody who does makeup for me said this is a Mariah Carey nightmare. ‘You have everything that you hate going on right now.’†[ABC]
“It wasn’t just de-glamorized … They added some hideousness on top of that too. I drank some ugly juice.†[Us]
“They added some [expletive] to my face. I’m not even a hairy person … Lee wanted an extreme look. He wanted ultra-real. I represent the audience pretty much. Mary or Precious might not see her as a welcome friend. But she really does have good intentions.†[USAT]