THE HELP directed by Tate Taylor, written by Taylor from the novel by Kathryn Stockett, with Viola Davis, Emma Stone and Allison Janney. 137 minutes. A Disney release. Now playing. See listing
It’s all about who you know when it comes to The Help. Director Tate Taylor was a childhood friend of Kathryn Stockett, author of the bestselling source novel. She sold him the rights and insisted to big bosses at Disney that Taylor direct.
Then there’s Allison Janney’s longtime link to Taylor. Most of us think of Janney as a major star. She played opposite Meryl Streep in The Hours and has multiple Emmys for her role in The West Wing.
Yet when it came to The Help, she considers herself lucky to have gotten the role of Charlotte, conflicted mom of journalist Skeeter, who’s documenting the experience of black maids. Janney says she didn’t get the part because she’s got such emotional depth as an actor or because her characterizations are so precise. No, she says, it’s because she was a friend of director Taylor.
“I owe it to knowing Tate and having done all his small-budget movies for nothing as a favour – because I adore him,” she says on the phone driving down an L.A. highway after wrapping the day’s shoot on Struck By Lightning. She has to stop talking several times during the interview, fearing she’ll miss a turnoff. “I didn’t assume he’d put me in The Help, but I hoped he’d give me the part. And he really stuck his neck out for me.”
Janney was hysterical in the indie pic Away We Go, and got lucky when Juno, in which she played another mom, became a mega-hit.
“The smaller-budget movies are where I find the plum roles. The scripts are a little riskier than Hollywood-produced films, and the subject matter’s more challenging.”
But she knows The Help could be a blockbuster. Even Oprah tried to muscle her way into the picture but eventually stepped back.
“The producers did circle her for a while,” Janney recalls. “She was a big fan of the book, but I think she said she didn’t want it to be too top-heavy. With her in it it would have been about Oprah being in the movie instead of this ensemble cast.”
That ensemble enjoyed a powerful bonding experience while making The Help.
“We were shooting in Greenwood, Mississippi, and there wasn’t a lot to do. We ate all our meals together. We’d sit on the porch of one of the rented houses, count bugs and watch the armadillos go by. One of my favourite memories is of getting in the back of Tate’s pickup truck and going to the middle of a cotton field to watch a storm roll in.”
Janney made a special connection with NOW cover girl Emma Stone (Easy A), who plays Skeeter.
“She’s a true actress,” Janney enthuses. “She’s not afraid of making a fool of herself. She doesn’t rely on being beautiful. I mean, she is gorgeous – but it’s all about the work and the craft and going into things head first. I found it really easy to be with her and to feel all the feelings Charlotte has for her daughter.”
susanc@nowtoronto.com
