Issue date: July 23, 2000

In this article:
3 divas from disc to screen
TALKIN ' SHOP: Janet Jackson music essentials

BY CRAIGH BARBOZA

The most incredible visual trick in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps may not be Eddie Murphy morphing into seven different characters who all interact with one another. True, the comic chameleon does play everything from a lean, loud womanizer to a perverted old bag in the sequel to 1996's blockbuster comedy. But gorgeous pop singer Janet Jackson makes an impressive transformation of her own: While Jackson the musician is known for her highly stylized videos, pumped-up dance tracks and elegant sexuality, in the movie she's a frail science professor who wears scholarly glasses, lectures on molecular biology and finds the loud flatulence at her future in-laws' dinner table -- beg your pardon -- a gas.

It's an interesting choice. Jackson could have picked any number of starring roles to announce her return to acting after her movie debut in Poetic Justice seven years ago. Her decision to play an extremely low-profile bookish-type character suggests that Jackson has grown weary of her standing as a superdiva and wants to remake her life in a new, more down-to-earth image. One reason she wanted to make The Klumps was to take her career in an entirely new direction. She's made it clear that her pride is not an obstacle, auditioning three times for the role of Murphy's love interest and putting her new album on hold.

"I was in the studio when they offered me the part," says Jackson, who after seeing the 1996 movie would often sit around with friends reciting lines from its famous dinner scene. "I'd already done two songs and was calling music producers that I wanted to work with."

It's not unusual for recording artists to cross over to Hollywood and demand above-the-title credit, big bucks and every comfort imaginable. Mind you, they often want all this even before making a hit movie. Not Jackson. "I probably expected her to be like any superstar, lots of pampering and posse," says Klumps producer Brian Grazer. "She had neither. Janet showed up alone for her audition and read just like everyone else."

If anything, Jackson, 34, always has been driven by a need to stand on her own, to distinguish herself from her family. While she was growing up, the Jackson 5 was one of the country's premier pop groups. It would have been easy for her to start a music career. But rather than sing, she chose to make her name on another stage: the soundstage. As a child, Jackson had a minor role on TV's Good Times, then as a teen, a small part in Diff'rent Strokes. She was planning for college and a career in Hollywood, but eloped at 18 with singer James DeBarge. When she eventually became a singer, Jackson altered her look through cosmetic surgery, reducing the size of her nose (and some think removing ribs to attain her trademark six-pack abs). There was a point where she considered dropping the "Jackson" part of her name, not because she was ashamed but because she felt it was overshadowing her. Soon after, in 1993, she released Janet., her first album to debut at No. 1.

Yet for all her success, she feels the need to begin afresh. "I want to get into acting again, the way I did when I was a kid," says Jackson, sitting in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York, where she recently bought a three-bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park. "I want to take acting lessons; that's one of the main reasons I came here. I got this place so that I could study."

The irony, of course, is that to become an esteemed actress Jackson will have to do more than study Stanislavsky: She'll have to bid farewell to the glamorous, sex- goddess persona she has cultivated over the past 15 years. Many see her only as a pop icon -- someone who has sold more than 45 million albums worldwide, racked up more than 20 top 10 hits and won two Grammys. The breakup of her (secret) marriage to Rene Elizondo may be a sign that she's willing to let go. Elizondo, who started dating Jackson in the mid-'80s, directed several of her videos and was an uncredited co-writer of many of her hit songs.

She is a woman of striking contrasts. It's amazing how shy Jackson is offstage, how easily embarrassed. When I mention that she loves to drive fast, for instance, she playfully covers her face with her hands and peeks through. "Yes," she says in her very soft voice, "and that's not a good thing. I've got a lead foot, like my mother." She has a way of making you feel sorry for bringing something up. Is this the same woman who pulls strangers out of the crowd at concerts and ties them to a chair onstage for a point-blank view of her exotic dance? "I can perform in front of 20 or 30,000 people, but when it comes to, like, eight or 10, I get so insecure. It's weird, but it's just the way I am."

Now that she's single again, Jackson spends her free time with girlfriends, mostly dancers she's worked with. They vacation in the islands, go club-hopping, or just bug out watching the Three Stooges. It reminds her of being with her brothers. "The whole dating thing is really different. Guys have always been afraid to ask me out," says Jackson, who claims she's always had to make the first move. "My girlfriends are all trying to fill me in, because this is a world I know nothing about. They tell me how it happens, and of course they tease me. They say: 'Janet, you think everybody just wants to be your friend. Sometimes people are looking for something else.' But I'm learning."

It hasn't been easy getting audiences to see her as a regular girl they can relate to. In Poetic Justice -- a street romance various studio heads warned her not to make -- Jackson played a South-Central Los Angeles beautician. The movie opened at No. 1, then quickly disappeared. In retrospect, Jackson admits it might not have been the best move, but not because it was a "black movie," as some had said. "I didn't know what I was getting into, and then once you're in it you're in it," says Jackson, whose recording of the theme song, Again, earned an Academy Award nomination. "It's not easy to carry an entire film [your first time out], and right now, I'm enjoying this a lot more. There's not as much pressure" playing a supporting role in The Klumps.

Regardless, many Hollywood executives would jump at the chance to work with Jackson, says DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg. "The thing that's so great about her is she does it all. She's a talented actress with a wicked sense of humor." The unlikely pair became friends a decade ago when Jackson moved into Katzenberg's Malibu Beach neighborhood. Because she knew no one in the area, brother Michael, who knew Katzenberg, suggested she give him a call. (Picture Janet as a lonely woman combing the beach for friendly faces.) According to Katzenberg, Jackson's part in The Klumps is a little misleading. "Sometimes being the straight person is harder comedy than being the jokester. The Nick Nolte role in 48 HRS. is as hard a role as you can do. It takes someone who knows timing. Eddie would be the first to tell you he needs a great board to bounce it off of. The better that is, the better he is."

Although undecided about her next movie, Jackson is interested in an unnamed romantic comedy. The role she's up for is not the lead, which means there'll be time to finish her album. "I want to take more risks," says Jackson, about to bounce to dance rehearsal for her new video, Doesn't Really Matter. "It's just a matter of growing, through your art and the business. Once that happens, people will be ready to accept me."

Associate Editor Craigh Barboza last wrote about rapper Busta Rhymes.