With Notorious out on DVD today, you know we had to holla at the number one (and, uh, TWOs) star of the movie. Sure, Gravy did his thing and all, but pause buttons were made for Naturi Naughton. Screw a bootleg—now we can finally analyze her memorable scenes in HD!
Seriously, though: The former 3LW member has already overcome plenty of adversity, from an unceremonious group breakup to harsh words from Lil Kim about her Notorious portrayal. With a starring role in the upcoming Fame remake (out in September), Naturi is ready to leave all the controversy behind. Still, when the lovely Ms. Naughton showed up at Complex last week (entourage-free, mind you), we had to get our Dr. Phil on and allow her to vent a little on the ups and downs of her career thus far. In this edition of YouTubin' with the Stars, Naturi discusses her breakup with 3LW, her new movie role and why she's not mad at Lil' Kim...
Interview by Maurice Slade
CLIP #1: "BABY REMEMBER MY NAME," COCO FROM FAME TV SHOW (1982)
Naturi says: Oh. I never saw this... All I have to say is, I didn't write the script, I didn't cast, produce or direct. I'm just an actress who put in her work. And as far as her saying that I never reached out to her; that is totally untrue. I would never want to play a real-life person without trying to contact them. The acting that I did is because I had a great director, a great acting coach and great co-stars. We did some great work and I'm not going to water down anything because someone feels like they should have had their way. Who knows it could have worked both ways. Talking to someone and listening to what they have to say could make you nervous—you stop focusing, you start doubting your own work, and you start trying to please them instead of focusing on the acting. I'm an actress and I'm going to do me at the end of the day. It's no disrespect to anybody but I'm here to do me in this world and I definitely tried my best to have the input of Lil' Kim and it did not happen. And I have so much respect for Kim. When I got the role I was like, I have to speak to Kim, so I reached out to [Lance] Un [Rivera] and there was conversation after conversation with Un but I never got any feedback from Kim.
