Perry, Day and Daniels Talk About The Making of 'The United States vs. Billie Holiday' During PAFF

By Darlene Donloe

The buzz around Hollywood is circling around Lee Daniels’ latest drama, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” starring singer Andra Day as the legendary singer. 

The film, currently running on HULU, garnered Day her first Golden Globe nomination and first win as the jazz great. 

As part of the Pan African Film Festival’s programming, a Conversation with Tyler Perry, Andra Day & Lee Daniels was held virtually on Wednesday, March 10. 

Perry interviewed Day and Daniels about the making of the movie. 

‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday’ tells the story of one of the greatest jazz legends in history. 

Beginning in the 1940's in New York City, the federal government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to escalate and racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial and heart-wrenching ballad, "Strange Fruit." Led by Oscar® nominated director Lee Daniels and introducing Grammy® nominated singer-songwriter Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday unapologetically presents the icon's complicated, irrepressible life. Screenplay writer Suzan-Lori Parks, the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, pens this intimate tale of a fierce trailblazer whose defiance through music helped usher in the civil rights movement. 

NAACP Image Award® Nominee Trevante Rhodes and Emmy® Nominee Natasha Lyonne co-star along with Garrett Hedlund, Miss Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Evan Ross, Tyler James Williams, Tone Bell, and Erik LaRay Harvey.

Below is the above-mentioned conversation led by Perry (TP), who questioned Daniels (LD) and Day (AD).

TP: No one Black men has been as instrumental in getting Black women some awards as you, Lee. You had Halle Berry in “Monsters Ball,” you have Monique in “Precious” and now Andra Day in ‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday”. 

LD: It feels good. It feels good to be able to understand Black women. They were really supportive of me as a kid. My mom and my aunts were very supportive. I understand the colors that Black women have. I try to dimensionalize Black women. I don’t think about it, I just do it. 

TP: Andra, you lose yourself in this film. To see you embody her. I thought, did they re-master her songs?  How did you do that?

AD: Doubling specific vision for Billie. Lee said, he didn't want an imitation, he wanted an interpretation.

LD: Tyler, this woman is spiritual. Tyler, she prays as much as you.  She snatches me and she jumps into prayer.

AD: It was the center of everything we did on set. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke, but I had to do all that. That gravel was part of her character. 

TP: I was four when “Lady Sings the Blues” came out. It was a big deal. She (Diana Ross) was up against Cicely Tyson for “Sounder.” You (Andra) were one-year-old when Whoopi won an award. Have you taken all this stuff in? 

AD: Not really. I don’t remember hearing my full name. But then the room went wild.

TP:  Someone this powerful and dominating. Lee, why Billie Holiday? Why tell this story?

LD: She (Billie) was a civil rights leader. I did not know that. We really need to know as Black people who our heroes are. You do not know she kicked up civil rights with that song. She stood up against the government. Before Martin Luther King, before Rosa Parks, she was there. (J. Edgar) Hoover couldn't penetrate Harlem, so they sent in someone Black. The song was the nail in the coffin. She was defiant and said, ‘No, I ain’t doing nothing.’

AD: With Billie, it’s in her gut and in her shoulders. I truly believe, in my experience and prayers, I asked for her. I do believe that she wanted her story told. That it was supposed to be told. 

LD: The studio wouldn't give me nickel over a nickel, Tyler. I knew that wasn’t the case for another movie.

TP: I’m going to give you $7 million or $9 million, but I’m going to give $30 million for another guy to tell the story of white people. It’s just flat out unfair. 

LD: You can't rely on the system. You have to be your own system.  

TP: How do you keep your motivation when you know it's just about being Black?

LD: It is prayer, Tyler.   It was my first film sober. Clear and sober.  When the timing is right, the timing is right. I was not – not going to win. I had to honor Billie. She didn't have a support team like I had. She had the opposite. The government was paying off her friends.

TP: The beautiful thing is you said, they didn’t win, but I’m going to win. 

AD: His openness of his own addiction and how transparent he was. We said we had to do this for him and for our family members who have been taken from us through addiction. 

LD: When you think about what Black people have gone through, I’m surprised we’re all not experiencing addiction. I  can't believe we are thriving as beautifully as we are. 

TP: It was so bold to take on so many subjects of her. The addiction, the music. I never knew about her being a queer woman. I did not know what she was dealing with, with the government. 

LD: I did not understand ‘Strange Fruit’ really until I read Suzan Lori Parks’s book. I realized the impact after that. 

AD: People asked me how I did the dying scene. I had to die. I had to die in my body. Singing ‘Strange Fruit.’ This is an ugly song. This is not a good song. Don’t clap. Don’t say how good it is. It’s not a good song. Don’t tell me how great I sing it. It’s not a good song. If you think it’s a good song, go out and do something.