Evan Ross Has 'Pride'

We've chatted with Evan Ross, the actor son of super Supreme diva Diana Ross, once before and find him to be more confident and making his own way with flair in his second film effort Pride, in which the cute actor plays a 1970's Philadelphia urban kid with a stutter whose life is turned around by a great swim coach in the new "root-for-the-underdog" film.

Soft-spoken Evan first came to our attention in the urban tale ATL with co-stars T.I. and Antwan A. Patton (Big Boi). After Pride, next up is an HBO movie Life Support with Queen Latifah and the indie Gardens of the Night co-starring John Malkovich.

With his dark hair, pale-ish skin and black outfit (black leather jacket over black velvet shirt and white tee and dark pants), Evan was looking a bit 1980's era Michael Jackson (those were the good years, people) for our interview in Beverly Hills.

Yes, Evan does sing and dance and he's working on his debut album but, with a famous chart-topper for a mom, he knows it has to be special. Right now, we're talking.. Pride.

TeenHollywood: First of all, you live in L.A. now Evan but where did you grow up?

Evan: I was born in Greenwich, Connecticut but I've never been in just one place. My father was Norwegian so I lived in Norway. I've lived in New York. I've lived in L.A. Never really in one spot.

TeenHollywood: You play a kid who ends up a swim champ. So, did you swim well before the film?

Evan: I've always swam. I grew up swimming but I haven't been trained in swimming at all. So, when we actually had that month of training, it was a struggle. Mostly, for me, it was about endurance. It was a lot of swimming. I was cramping up and I was tired and I was at home like 'oh, my Gosh'. They pushed us to the limit and I think, with the struggle, we felt like we were on a team and it brought us all closer. In the film, we're training and we hadn't swam like that before and you see that and a lot of that feeling came out. We knew it because we had dealt with it.

TeenHollywood: So you trained a lot, like a month?

Evan: Yeah. Out here in L.A.

TeenHollywood: Was that whole '70's thing; the clothes, the hair, bizarre to you?

Evan: Yeah. It was different. I got to have a buzz cut but everybody else had to deal with the wigs and the long hair. It was out of control. We did a lot of research. The whole time before we started filming, it was non-stop work. It might have been more work than when we were filming actually. We would wake up in the morning and go do swim training in New Orleans at six o'clock in the morning; tried, all in one van. From there, we'd play basketball. We went straight from there to the production office where we watched '70's movies, then from there we went to Tulane for research. No matter how tired we were, we were trying to get all this information. It was great.

TeenHollywood: Your mom knows quite a bit about the '70's. You could have asked her.

Evan: [big smile] She does. I called her. A lot of people were like 'you've gotta ask'. I was asking her about the slang and she said 'I don't remember the slang then'. But she talked about it, some stuff about the hair styles. I sent her some things with Regine [Nehy], the girl in the film and what they had her hair like. There were some thoughts on that that she was involved with. And they had her picture in the make-up room and I'm like 'oh, yeah, there's mom'.

TeenHollywood: Were they looking at her 1970's hair or what?

Evan: Everything. They had a little clothing, what she was wearing. Interesting time; a good time. They had such great clothing. I was talking to Terrence [Howard who plays the coach in the film]. Terrence was like 'lets get some of this for when we're off-set'.

TeenHollywood: What was it like stepping on the set with Terrence, Kimberly Elise, Bernie Mac, Tom Arnold; what was it like working with all those people?

Evan: It was incredible to be amongst them and be doing scenes with them. They're so talented. Terrence was a genius. I learned so much from him and I'm so thankful. Hopefully, with all my thank yous, I can give a little bit back because it was so incredible. He's given me so much in my career. He's really inspired me to do a lot of things and he's very interesting. I think it made everyone better, Bernie, everybody it made all the performances so much more powerful because you can't help but be really in. It's very powerful.

TeenHollywood: It got pretty emotional. Terrence cried.

Evan: When Terrence cried, we all cried. They cut out some of the crying scenes because we were crying a whole lot. I remember calling Paul Hall the producer before I saw the film and saying, 'I hope you guys cut some of that crying out'. We cried a whole lot. He said, 'We tried to cut some of it out but, yeah, you're still crying'. It was an emotional set.

TeenHollywood: Did you have any time off-set when not training, to hang out with the cast?

Evan: There's great food in New Orleans. We did hang out. We were in the hotel a lot but we did hang out. We'd be in our rooms watching '70's movies and Alphonso McAuley [who plays Walt] was just one of the funniest people ever and he kept it just lively all the time. He may be funny in the film but he was funny every second. We would wake him up from a nap and he'd be funny. Not only that but he really kept everybody on a good note. We were tired and he just kept that uplifting and happy feeling. It's just a blessing to be there and the more you are reminded of that, it just feels good to be in that moment.

TeenHollywood: Was your character written with a stutter or did you bring that?

Evan: It was written with a stutter. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to play the role. I didn't go out for any other role. My agents and managers were like, 'come on. I think it's a good idea for you to go out for Andre, the powerful guy'. I thought it would be nice for me to do something that was different and vulnerable. I wanted to be the underdog in the film. You can love this character's subtleties. I thought it would be an interesting character to play with a stutter and the speech impediment. So, I worked on that for a minute with Michael T. Williams who I did ATL with. I called him up, 'I'm doing this role'. I knew he did Bubba in Forrest Gump so he helped me with the delivery and we did research. I think that was one of the bigger reasons I wanted to play that character. I was a little nervous about it.

TeenHollywood: There is some racism in the movie. Please tell me that the white actors playing the rival team were really friendly when cameras weren't rolling.

Evan: Oh yeah. They were friendly and we respected the fact that they were in [character] when they needed to be in and those looks felt real. We didn't even have to look over to them. Everything was very high emotion because you would feel it. I remember when we were walking in, [Andre] was like 'don't pay attention to them' because he knows my character is so vulnerable. I'm kind of like hiding behind him on the side by the pool. You really feel it.

TeenHollywood: How did you feel when you got the role? What was that process like?

Evan: We auditioned and I was calling every single day about this movie. I called my manager and agents like a hundred thousand times. They were like 'I'm telling you, when we know, we'll let you know'. When I found out I got the role, there was nothing cool about me. I was out of control, running around yelling. My mom was like 'what the hell is goin' on?' Her first thing she always says is 'are you sure?' because you can get so excited and, all of a sudden... I even ask my manager, every time he says 'you're got a role', I'm 'are you positive? There's no ifs, ands or buts about this? They said 'okay?'. Then I get excited. It was pandemonium for a few weeks in the house.

TeenHollywood: Are you doing music, Evan?

Evan: I'm doing it now, working on a film out here called Life is Hot in Crack Town this next week we start. It's me, Kerry Washington and Michael Rappoport. It's a darker film but really interesting. And, on the weekends, I'll be in the studio working on music. Mainly, what I'm doing is taking time with it. It's a process and making it right and making sure it's not rushed.

TeenHollywood: What is your sound like?

Evan: I sing a little R&B mix. It's different but it's good.