Despite the serious, heavy themes in Tyler Perry’s upcoming movie “For Colored Girls,” which is based on playwright Ntozake Shange’s 1974 Broadway hit “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” the film’s stars say the underlying message is not one of heartbreak, but one of hope and support.

“[It's about] basic human love and regard for one another,” Kimberly Elise said.

The film follows the lives of nine black women living in and around Harlem, all of whom are confronted with a range of crises, from love, abandonment and rape to infidelity and abortion.

“It’s so exhilarating to be able to say, ‘Yes, that’s how it is. They’re uncovering the truth.’ Life isn’t fuzzy and warm all the time,” Thandie Newton said. “Unless you don’t challenge yourself as a human being, you don’t really live.”

“And there’s a great statement on sisterhood and community,” Elise added. “I think you do leave the film feeling like, ‘I am woman, I can do this, I can stand on top of this pain and especially with my sisters around me,’ and what we bring to each other and what I bring to her,” she said, motioning to Newton. “Even in the making of the film, we had to bring it for each other, and so I think you leave the film feeling that.”

“Also just the basic, the fundamental truth that you are not alone,” Newton said. “Whatever you have experienced, however challenging and difficult, you are not alone.”

“For Colored Girls,” which opened Friday (November 5), also stars Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Loretta Devine, Janet Jackson, Tessa Thompson and Whoopi Goldberg.

This weekend the feature adaptation of the stage play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf will open in theaters nationwide. The film is directed by Tyler Perry, who also adapted and wrote the screenplay based on this heartbreaking material. The cast of For Colored Girls is a who’s who of stage, film, and television legends including Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, and Thandie Newton.

We had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Newton about her role in the film and the dark subject matter that For Colored Girls addresses. Her character’s name is Tangie, an oversexed, overly aggressive woman who isolates herself from the world. She’s angry, hurt, and acts out against everyone because its the only way she knows how to survive. We had an interesting conversation that addressed the root of Tangie’s behavior and it was an eye opening experience to say the least.

Check out the interview…

The character Tangie is violent, loud, and sexually promiscuous. As an actress how did you feel playing someone who has so little respect for herself and those around her?

Thandie Newton: Tangie is the result of the trauma that she experienced. It’s really about the symptoms of abuse. What happens to a person if they are too ashamed and unable to speak their truth. The sort of toxic energy that comes off her, the way she disrespects men, and the way she alienates herself from women. This kind of toxic soup is the result of unspoken childhood abuse. I know many people who have experienced abuse in childhood. I’m appalled by it. I’m saddened by it. I’m confused by it. I’ve spent a large degree of my adult life trying to give a voice to both sides. You can’t demonized people who have inflicted these crimes we have to understand the root of it if we’re ever going to figure it out.

And you feel that she’s hurting others because she’s hurt herself?

TN: As soon as you treat people badly it’s a reflection of how you’re treating yourself. I found it really hard to play her and feel sympathetic. She’s someone I’d like to sit down, and say you need to sort yourself out! And I couldn’t do that. I had to play her denial. Ultimately, I realized what she is, she’s suffering.

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When Tyler Perry called Thandie Newton to be a part of a new project he was embarking on, the British actress said yes before she knew what the movie was about. Newton wasn’t familiar with Ntozake Shange’s original play, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf,” nor had her role of Tangie — the saucy, sexually independent woman Perry created for the film version of “For Colored Girls” — been created.

What Newton did know is Perry was about to do something very different from the melodramas that had made his name in Hollywood. “He made me feel like I was a part of a journey of discovery and it was all about the piece,” Newton told Speakeasy. Newton talked at length about the movie, her brash character and the atmosphere on the set.

The Wall Street Journal: This role is part of an ensemble cast. How does your approach differ?

It’s sharing the responsibility. We all have a little slice we’re responsible for but ultimately no one is going to carry the focus. There was a lovely camaraderie and sense of appreciation for one another. Phylicia [Rashad] was just telling me, someone asked her this morning if there were ever any catfights. It was like, What do you mean? Oh of course! Women! Actresses together! But I guess we’re sort of sophisticated people. We had a lot to think about and deal with.

Was your role of Tangie always the role you wanted to play?

Well, I read the script first and then I read the play, which I hadn’t been familiar with because I’m English and not from the theater really. In the first draft, Tangie didn’t actually exist. It went through three significant re-writes, because he was creating the women and he was using key elements from the play to create these modern women. He gave them names and situations and relationships and so on, and so that changed quite a lot. In the initial discussion, it was more about being involved in the project than the specific character.

As opposed to the other characters who are dealing with man problems, your problems are with other women.

I’m glad you pointed that out. That would be one of the symptoms of self-sabotage. The way you alienate yourself from yourself is by alienating yourself from your sex, because that’s where she could have gained most comfort. Then it’s her own mother that’s betrayed her and abused her, so her fear and distrust of women stems from that root.

How difficult was it to play the outcast in a movie where all the characters kind of come together?

I found playing this character very painful. I could see where she was going wrong so it was very hard to play the scenes where she was going wrong, because I see myself as a fairly enlightened person in that respect. I wanted her to have this release, I really did, because I cared for this struggling, messed up person.

Was that aspect of your role, the isolation and the cattiness, difficult to turn off when the cameras weren’t rolling?

I must admit, I did rebel against that initially because I find it quite hard to be treated with real respect and I’m very suspicious and cynical, and I was entering this place of feeling very vulnerable. It was painful. But I learned how to take the good stuff. Tyler is bounteous, he creates security.

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Today, November 6th, is Thandie Newton’s 38th birthday! On behalf of her fans from around the world, Thandie Newton Web would love to wish Thandie an amazing day today!

The lovely Thandie Newton has been recognized for her work on the big screen in films such as W and Crash, but it’s her role as a mom to her daughters Ripley, 10, and Nico, 5, that is most important to her. The 37-year-old actress recently talked to Hollybaby.com about being a mother to her “two beautiful girls.”

On what she hopes to teach her girls: “I want my girls to feel empowered. That’s the most important thing. I think as a mom it’s important to teach your children that they’re extraordinary, powerful beings. Your job is to keep the path clear so there is nothing they can trip up on.”

On her daughters: “They’re not into going to stores and buying dolls. Ripley is not a girlie girl. If I bought her an American Girl doll, the hair would be cut off in a week. I go into her bedroom and find a crew cut left on the floor. Poor Barbie!… Moms shouldn’t force their girls to be too girlie. If they don’t like dolls then let it go. Let them find their own creative outlets. Maybe they don’t like dolls, but love to paint.”

On how motherhood has changed her: “It’s amazing how you start again and you re-live your childhood. The universe has given me girls because I needed to live that girlhood again in a fresh way.”

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