Q&A: Gabby Sidibe

Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe (Credit: Jordan Strauss/WireImage)

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In the harrowing drama "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe makes her film debut as 16-year-old Precious, who has been abused her entire life by her mother and gives birth to two kids by her father. She is illiterate. She is poor. She is overweight and very insecure.

No one would ever call the movie "fun."

Yet fun is the first word that comes to mind after a discussion with the cheerful, easygoing 26-year-old Sidibe. The native New Yorker and big-screen newcomer—whose confidence and humor would be unrecognizable to anyone who sees her in the film first—is set to break out in a major way with her startlingly real turn.

She's already taken the film festival scene by storm. "Precious"—directed by Lee Daniels and supported by influential executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry—has won audience awards at the Sundance, Toronto and Chicago film fests. That kind of pre-release embrace has driven speculation of the movie's chances in major Oscar categories like Best Picture, Best Actress for Sidibe and Best Supporting Actress for Mo'Nique (a revelation as Precious' stunningly cruel mother Mary).

What? Oscar? Sidibe said that doesn't even sound real to her.

It's great that you have Oprah behind "Precious." What would be more powerful: That, or having a federal law requiring everyone to see the film?
People often break laws, but nobody breaks Oprah. [Laughs] I think maybe Oprah wins.

As if people are afraid of what happens if they don't listen to her?
[Laughs] Yeah, people can do 30 days in government jail, but what will happen if you upset Oprah?

Nobody knows.
Nobody knows, and nobody wants to find out. That's for sure.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how heavy are this movie's issues?
That scale would move up and down from person to person. I don't know if I can rate it on a scale. I'd have to say 5, right down the middle.

Why?
There are some people [for whom] it'd be a 1 or a 3 or something because they know this person, and so it might be close enough to home that it's not very emotionally jarring. Or too close to home so that it's 10.

At first you didn't want to get into acting, and then you took a part that completely puts you out there.
I know! I've been running, running from this business for a long time. My mom used to take me to Huggies [commercial auditions]. I was such a goofy, goofy gremlin child. I was like way too creative; nobody got it. [sarcastically] I was an artist! I used to stand up in front of my class and tell jokes. I wanted to be a comedienne when I was about eight or nine years old and my mom was saying, "You need to do this. You need to go on 'Star Search.'" And I'd be like, "Whoa. You're too invested." And I'd walk out and leave it alone. So I've been running away from it, but I think it's a lesson that you can't run from what you're supposed to be.

So they weren't looking for that much personality in a Huggies commercial?
I don't know. They certainly weren't looking for a child screaming and crying to leave.

Some people say it was brave to cast someone who actually looked the part of Precious, rather than getting someone thin to put on a fat suit.
That's stupid. The point of Precious, part of the reason why she's so ignored and so beaten upon is because of the way she looks. And it's terribly disrespectful to girls who do look like that, to girls like me, if they had gotten any other actress and padded her up and put prosthetics on her face. I would have been picketing. That would have been completely disrespectful because there are plenty of girls in the world who look like this. There's no reason to get a tiny actress and pretend and make her something else. For people who think that, that's obviously close-minded because it says that actual girls like that have no self-worth and are not worth watching on the screen and can't carry a film, which I think we disproved.

What do you think when people throw the word "Oscar" around?
It makes me nervous. Because I don't know what an Oscar-winning film is. I don't know what an Oscar-winning actress is, other than the obvious examples—Halle Berry and Kate Winslet and all these people. I can't see it because it's too close to me. I haven't been in this business very long and I don't know what it looks like.

If I interview you again in two years will you be saying, "Oh, well, now that I have a couple..."
A couple what, Oscars? What would I do with them and where did I find them? [Laughs] If you interview me in two years and I have a couple of Oscars, I probably knocked someone out for [them].

You grew up as a fan of Mariah Carey, who plays a social worker in the film. What went through your head when you found out you'd be working with her?
Just a series of "No ways" and "Shut ups." Like those excited, "Shut up! No! Shut up!"

And you were by yourself?
[Laughs] No, I was with Mr. Daniels. And he told me, "Calm down. Don't tell anyone." Because at that time I guess it was a secret, and he was like, "Don't you tell anyone." I was like, "I can't, I can't. I gotta." I was just excited to meet her. I had a fantasy of singing "Fantasy" with her. Did not happen.

Why not?
Just because it would be awkward for me to be all, "Shoo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo." That'd be weird.

You never know if you don't try.
And now that we're kinda friends, now it's too late. It would be even more awkward now.


More about Gabby…
— Just filmed "Yelling to the Sky" opposite Zoë Kravitz, daughter of her "Precious" co-star Lenny Kravitz
— Wants to do comedy and be a romantic lead: "I want to do things that are outside of the box that people try to put me in."
— Has a "newscaster crush" on Stephen Colbert
— Celebrated landing her role in "Precious" with a Torrid shopping spree
— Likes playing it loose on the red carpet: "I think it's funnier to make a goofy face than to smile at a camera."

Find showtimes for "Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire."