The Surprising Thing Queen Latifah Says She’ll Never Do on Screen Again
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Well, now we know what not to expect in any upcoming Queen Latifah movies. In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight , the actor opened up about the one thing she will not do on screen—not unless she’s paid a lot more money than usual, that is. Some stars might take issue with sexually graphic scenes or extreme violence, but Latifah draws the line at something else: She won’t die on screen.
At least, she won’t die on screen anymore . In some of her earlier movies, Latifah played characters who were killed before the credits rolled, so she decided to put those days behind her in a very official way. Read on to find out how Latifah ensured she won’t die on screen and why it’sso important to her.
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<img loading=“lazy” src=“https://bestlifeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/09/set-it-off.png?w=500" onerror=“this.onerror=null;this.src=‘https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhe7F7TRXHtjiKvHb5vS7DmnxvpHiDyoYyYvm1nHB3Qp2_w3BnM6A2eq4v7FYxCC9bfZt3a9vIMtAYEKUiaDQbHMg-ViyGmRIj39MLp0bGFfgfYw1Dc9q_H-T0wiTm3l0Uq42dETrN9eC8aGJ9_IORZsxST1AcLR7np1koOfcc7tnHa4S8Mwz_xD9d0=s16000';" alt=“Queen Latifah in “Set It Off” - 2”>
New Line Cinema
After getting her start as a rapper, Latifah transitioned to acting in the 1990s. While she appeared in several films and starred on the series Living Single during that decade, a few of her movies are most memorable for her characters’ death scenes. In the 1995 action movie Set It Off , Latifah’s character Cleo is killed during a high-speed chase with police. Then, in the 1998 sci-fi movie Sphere , her character Alice is killed by jellyfish. In the 1999 movie The Bone Collector , her character Thelma is killed by a murderer.
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Latifah decided to put a “no death” clause in her movie contracts after realizing she might be too adept at fictionally dying. She didn’t want to be asked to do it over and over again.
“I noticed I was too good at it, so it’s kind of a running joke,” she told Entertainment Tonight . “‘Cause of course, for the right price, you know, she dies … It’s in the script.”
<img loading=“lazy” src=“https://bestlifeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/09/queen-2022.jpg?quality=82&strip=all&w=500" onerror=“this.onerror=null;this.src=‘https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhe7F7TRXHtjiKvHb5vS7DmnxvpHiDyoYyYvm1nHB3Qp2_w3BnM6A2eq4v7FYxCC9bfZt3a9vIMtAYEKUiaDQbHMg-ViyGmRIj39MLp0bGFfgfYw1Dc9q_H-T0wiTm3l0Uq42dETrN9eC8aGJ9_IORZsxST1AcLR7np1koOfcc7tnHa4S8Mwz_xD9d0=s16000';" alt=“Queen Latifah at the premiere of “Hustle” in June 2022 - 4”>
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Latifah explained that she also didn’t want to keep dying in movies because that meant she’d be out if any potentially turned into a franchise.
“I was like, ‘I don’t get to do any sequels if I keep being this good at this,’” she continued in the ET interview. “So, I was like, after Set It Off and Sphere , I said, ‘Look, you gotta put a ‘no death’ clause in these contracts so they can’t just kill me off like this. I’m never gonna get a sequel in!”
Latifah has only been too happy to confirm rumors that she includes this clause in her contracts. During a 2016 interview on The Late Late Show , the 52-year-old actor similarly explained that she had an eye on potential sequels.
“When I first started doing movies I always had theses death scenes,” she said. “In Set It Off I got killed. In Sphere I got killed. Apparently, I died too well. And then I caught on, like, wait a minute, if I die in these movies, I can’t be in the sequel. ‘Get my agent on the phone. We will put a ‘no die’ clause in these future movie contracts.’”
As for the sequels Latifah has booked, she notably starred in the Barbershop spinoff Beauty Shop after appearing in Barbershop 2: Back in Business . She’s also planning to be in the reportedly upcoming sequel to her 2017 comedy, Girls Trip . On that front, she told ET , “From everything I know it’s locked and loaded and ready to go. It’s just that somebody’s gotta make it happen.”
