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In my deeply humble opinion,Set It Offis the best, most affectingheist filmever made.
you might keep yourOceansand yourJobs(Italian, Bank), your endlessly adapted Bonnies and Clydes.
(Kimberly Elise), and Frankie (Vivica A.
All four are furious and powerless, aware of the systemic roadblocks that will always stand in their way.
So they do the only thing that they can do: They decide to rob a bank.
Each of the films four leads seem born for their specific roles within the chaos, but Vivica A. opposite Rosie Perez as Frankie, and how Will Smith helped her prepare for her audition.
I loveSet It Off.Cult classic, honey!
F. Gary Gray came by the set ofIndependence Day, which I was shooting at the time.
And actually, heres a fun pearl: My acting coach forSet It Offwas Will Smith.
Jada, of course, was dating him at the time.
No, they were dating at the time.
And he was like, Vivica.
I want you to get this role.
And I was like, Will, theyre making me audition for two roles!
And he was like, Which roles?
And I was like, For Frankie, and for T.T.
And he was like, You aint T.T.
So when you go in there, I want you to kill it.
So I was like, Okay, Im ready, Im gonna kill it.
first, and I saw F. Gary Gray kind of [skeptical].
But the thing was, theyd already cast Rosie Perez as Frankie.
I found this out after my audition.
But then he was like, Do Frankie!
And he went, Thats it.
Sometimes if the director likes you, they always have notes.
Just to kind of throw you.
But he says, Listen.
Im gonna be really honest with you.
Right now, they want Rosie Perez, but I want you.
If she falls out, youre gonna be Frankie.
So what happened to Rosie?She dropped out!
I dont know if she had another project.
I dont know why, but she fell out.
And Im grateful for her fall-out.
BeforeSet It Off,I was the hot chick.
Like, the uppity pretty girl.
People were like, Whoa!
Wow, I never knew you could get like that.
I was like, I must be in this film.
And then four girls, robbing a bank?
It was like, I want to do this!
Before then, Id doneSoul Food,and my image was different.
And I really thought this would show me as an actress in a different light.
It was just so meaty.
It was action, and Im an athlete, so I love being physical.
I just knew itd be a good project.
Id worked onLiving Single;Jada I knew from just all of us being young, up-and-comers.
Id actually saw Kimberly on the way out of my audition.
I remembered her, over in the corner, practicing her lines.
And when we first started rehearsing, I asked her, What have you done?
And she said, Im from the theater.
And she nailed T.T.
when F. Gary Gray was casting these girls, every actress really fit their part.
How early on did you guys start developing chemistry as a friend group?
Because we mostly knew each other.
And then Latifah was doing so many jobs, so we really had to be there for her.
She was doingLiving Single, she was almost working around the clock.
So a lot of times Latifah would come in, get in the makeup chair, and fall asleep.
Thank God she didnt have to have a lot of hair and makeup as Cleo.
Shed just be out of it, and wed help her.
And wed have rehearsals a lot, so thatd help, too.
I introduced Queen Latifah to sushi.
Shes like, Girl, Im from New York.
Im not eating no raw fish.
But by the end, she loved it.
The chemistry for us came so easy.
Did you find yourselves falling into the dynamics of your characters?
Thats why we were able to ad-lib so easily.
Jada ad-libbed that, Frankie wanna blow up the bank, uh.
Frankie wanna rob the bank, uh.
People will walk up to me and say, Frankie wanna blow up the bank!
And Im like, Isnt that crazy, they dont even know that wasnt written.
And Im such a priss about my nails.
And they were just rolling.
They were like, Oh my God.
Vivica is so Frankie.
And because of her association with the hood, she felt like, Damn!
So the whole thing with her was like, Revenge will be mine.
Because she knew the bank, she thought, Im gonna get back at them.
Im gonna take from them what they took from me.
Would you say that, like Frankie, you were the ringleader of the group?Hmm.
That couldnt have been Latifah, because she was doing so much.
Id say that the ringleader for us was our director.
He was really all about making sure that the chemistry and everything was real.
I want everyone to understand why these girls I want all the story lines to make sense.
And I love that he created that backstory.
Did those backstories resonate with you guys?
Did they feel real?Absolutely.
Originally, with the script, we were throwing out pages daily.
But thats what you do when you have a good director who knows what he has to turn in.
We were given the freedom with him to create things, and dialogue that would make sense.
What rang false about the original script?Jada was a crackhead.
There were so many stereotypes of black people.
F. Gary Gray was like, Nope!
Her brother was a crack dealer.
It just didnt make sense.
He was like, No, Jadas gonna be working hard to get him to go to school.
And her motivation was him saying, I dont want to go to school!
Any little moments you remember ad-libbing or lines you changed?Thescene on the roofwas so much ad-libbing.
I remember our butts hurt.
I dont know what the hell that roof was made out of, but wow, did it hurt.
A lot of that scene was ad-libbing, like Jadas telling Cleo, You look like Sugar Bear.
That scene is so memorable to me.
And then also the scenewhere Im being interrogated.
And Im covered in blood?
And I asked him, yo let me say something to her.
And everyone was like, Yo, Viv, that was tight!
Quentin makes sure that everything is very detail-oriented.
They were all very much in control of their films.
But Gray and Tarantino really wanted to see to it that for women, it made sense.
That we were true kick-ass chicks, and that the audience would believe it.
Were you aware of that rejection?See there?
That would explain why, when we filmed, Gray was so on our ass.
I remember one day, he was like, You have to be on time.
You cant do Colored People Time, coming in 15 minutes late like you dont care.
We were in trouble.
He was like, Let me tell yall something.
Im not gonna take this disrespect!
That explains why he was a stickler for being on time and being serious and taking this seriously.
I love that about him.
Was there an awareness among the four of you that what you were making was groundbreaking?
[Because of] F. Gary Gray, we definitely did understand that.
I remember the premiere, and the pre-buzz, and the marketing that they did.
Everybody was like, This looks like this is gonna be bangin.
And then the soundtrack was off the chain.
And thosebox-office numbersdefinitely let you know that it was a sleeper surprise hit.
That premiere for me, it was so fun.
Dominique Wilkins, a basketball player …
I knew him, being a basketball fan over the years.
And I remember he came up to me like, Vivica!
And I was like, What?!
And I was like, Okay …
He was so passionate.
And I was in there crying.
And I went back the next day.
How did you guys nail such a tricky tone?Once again F. Gary Gray.
He was so detailed about, lets say for example, our masks.
The way the first bank robbery happened is, were wearing janky wigs and the guns were amateurish.
Each robbery, the level stepped up: By the end, we had machine guns and clear masks.
It was very stylized.
Originally, I did not get that.
I was like, Im gonna be Marlon Brando?
And a girlfriend of mine by the name of Virginia Watson gave me the perfect note.
you’re able to do this, Vivica.
And I was like, Okay!
So I went and I watchedThe Godfather, and I was like, [gasps] I got it!
We filmed that scene at like, 3 oclock in the morning.
And Latifah would sleep.
I was like, Im awake for their takes!
But Latifah would sleep, Jada was getting sleepy, and I was like, Aint this a bitch?
Theyre sleeping on my takes.
And F. Gary Gray was like, Kill it.
You know what youre doing.
And I did that take and I almost did it in one take.
And he was like, Thats what Im talking about.
Thats my favorite scene by far.Next up, Balboa Savings and Loan.
This movie is also very emotional.
What do you remember as the most fraught scene for you to film?When T.T.
And I was driving the car, and she got shot, and then we realized that shed died.
We filmed it in downtown Los Angeles.
Jada was so superb, when she did the whole thing about the ice cream.
Even now, it chokes me up a little bit.
She was just so good.
And what was it like to filmyour own very dramatic death scene?Oh, wow.
Well first of all, it was about 5 oclock in the morning, and it was real cold.
If you see the scene, you see that theres a ton of condensation.
Thank God for me, I was so into that that I didnt even feel how cold it was.
So I was laying on cold, wet pavement.
And I remember that when I got shot, they shot it in slow-motion.
F. Gary Gray was like, Are you gonna be okay with the blood pellets and everything?
And I was like, Yeah, lets do it!
I fell down, my feet flipped up into the air.
I was an athlete, so Im very physical, like I said.
What was going through your mind in terms of her motivation in those final moments?
Why does she sort of sacrifice herself?Thats another line I got to ad-lib.
Originally, she turned around and walked away.
And I was like, No!
Shes gotta [say something].
So I say, Its over.
She knows shes gonna die.
And in that scene beforehand, with her and Jada, Im like, Ill catch up with you!
And I hugged her really tight.
And then it was like, boom, I got caught.
And Frankie knew:This is it.
]I hate that: We workin!
This is my money that I earned.
Thats how I feel about friends and money.
Make your own money, my sister!
Arkansasis now available to watch on Apple, Amazon, On Demand platforms, Blu-ray and DVD.
