Jamie: Are your pregnancies easy?
Vanessa: I had great pregnancies. I love being pregnant. I gained at least 50 pounds each time, so it wasn't like I gained 20 like these miracle women who drop the extra pounds by the time they leave the hospital and then the kids sleep through the night on the first night. I had a normal pregnancy where I gained my weight and it took me a good nine months to lose it. I nursed all of my kids. Nursed my son till he was almost two. Couldn't get him off. I love every aspect of being a mom. And, of course, there's the lack of sleep at times-like when I sang the national anthem for the Superbowl. (Arnold gave her his private jet so she could do it.) Of course, the night before, my middle daughter had an earache and was up all night. So the big day that I'm supposed to look all fly and ravishingly beautiful, I had barely gotten any sleep the night before because I had to nurse her with an earache and get the blow-dryer out and blow her ear and get the drops in and all that stuff. So, that's the life of a mom.
Jamie: Blow dry her ear? I never heard of that.
Vanessa: Yes. When kids have an earache, if you do like a warm blow-dryer in their ear, it eases the pain. We took her to the doctor the next day and she had an infected ear canal.
Jamie: Oh, she did? She's okay now?
Vanessa: Yes. She's on drops.
Jamie: Now, when you came out with the plain look, was that for your album, The Sweetest Day?
Vanessa: Yes.
Jamie: Okay. Why was that? I thought it was gorgeous.
Vanessa: I was 28 and had a great team of hair and make-up people. We were always experimenting and looking at old movies and trying to recapture Raquel Welch in this and Brigett Bardot in that and all that kind of stuff. But the third album, I just wanted to show the progress of me, maturing as a woman and kind of stripping off all the make-up and hair and stuff and putting my hair back and putting on a light make-up, wearing a turtleneck and saying, "You know what? This is me. I'm thirty years old now and this is a different part of my life and this is the essence of my being."
Jamie: I remember Ed [Eckstine, President of Vanessa's record label] said, "Vanessa's only 24,25 years old, Jamie!" You know, when you came out with your album, The Right Stuff. He was saying you could hit that young market-but you really are geared more towards Broadway.
Vanessa: Adults !--whatever that means. Right. Which is fine. I'm one of those kids who always liked to hang out with people older than me. I always loved culture, you know, one of those kids who grows up too fast.
Jamie: Did you have problems being light-skinned when you were a child?
Vanessa: Not particularly, because I went to predominantly white schools. So I was still black. Light-skinned had nothing to do with it. I was still the only black kid in the class. There was one Indian boy in my class, and of course they would all automatically say, "Vanessa and Jacob get together," because we both had brown skin. So, as a parent, every year I make sure that my kids have another child of color in their class, whether it be Asian, Indian or another African American, so they don't have to go through what I went through. Actually, the faculty has done a great job making sure that happens. It's one of the things that I have to do as a parent, but I think it's important.
Jamie: What do you think about
the violence in rap now? Does it bother you?
Vanessa: I've been recording for the past eight years or so.I don't pay that much attention to it anymore. I used to, as a woman, feel very violated and feel like I should say something. But people pick and choose their own avenues and if that's your niche, you're not going to change anybody's mind. Although people that are within that environment-like Queen Latifah is a prime example-will be respected and be able to say something and say, "You know what? Women shouldn't be called bitches and ho's. Don't treat us like that." And that works. So as much ranting and raving as I or Whitney [Houston] would want to do about what we think the rap world should say, it's going to be the people who infiltrate and have a positive message who can make a difference.
Jamie: Do you want a TV series, ever?
Vanessa: No. That's one thing I don't want. You get so locked into a personality. It's so hard to be taken out of that mode.
Jamie: How did you feel when you were chosen to do this part with Arnold [Schwarzenegger]?
Vanessa: I wasn't chosen, I had to fight for it. I've always had to fight. The phrase that comes after me is, "Vanessa Williams? Oh, I didn't know she could do that!" I had just come off nine months of Broadway, went straight into a miniseries with CBS, then went straight into Bye-Bye Birdie, then had a day off, flew back and went into rehearsal for my tour. I was burned out.
Jamie: Wait a minute. Start again.
Vanessa: I did nine months on Broadway and then went from that.... Actually, I promoted my album overseas right after that, then went into a mini-series. I did "Nothing Lasts Forever" for CBS. Then I did ByeBye Birdie. Flew back. Had the day off and started rehearsal for my tour. I was completely burned out. The record I didn't feel had really any momentum and the financial backing on the tour was not solid. I had some Japanese dates that were set up over there that I was scheduled to do and then they were booking all these other shows in the States. But I was totally overwhelmed. When I was doing Bye-Bye Birdie, my agent said, "They'd like you to read for the new Arnold Schwarzenegger film." So I said, "Well, I can't because I'm going out on tour." But I knew there were some financial problems with the tour, so I called my agent and said, "Is there still a possibility I can read?" And he said, "Yeah." So I flew myself out for the audition. Read for [the producer] Arne Kopelson, and the director, Chuck Russell. Then they called me back the next day and wanted me to meet Arnold and read with him. Flew back, then that Friday they called me back out to do a screen test. By the following Monday, I had gotten the part. I didn't realize that nobody wanted me. Maria Shriver [Arnold's wife] had suggested me but everyone, you know, since I didn't have a lot of...
Jamie: Maria suggested you? This wasn't a part for a black woman, though?
Vanessa: No. So, Maria said, you know, thinking about people, "Vanessa might be a good idea." But Arne Kopelson didn't know me as a feature film actor. Arnold Schwarzenegger only knew me as a recording artist and Chuck Russell, the director, didn't know me at all. So these are people that I had to convince. I had to go in there and, basically, kick ass in my audition. I fought for the part and got it. So it wasn't offered to me on a silver platter at all. And they also probably didn't want me to do the single because they didn't want it to be another Bodyguard [Whitney Houston's movie with Kevin Costner]. So it worked against me that The Bodyguard had been so successful. They didn't want to have the same thing. But they couldn't deny the screen test, and I was prepared.
Jamie: But now you are doing the theme song. When did they decide to let you sing it?
Vanessa: Probably after about two months into it. They got to know me and then I started saying, 'Hey, it's a good idea." But at that point I didn't want to do it because there was no kiss [between my character and Arnold's]. There was a relationship, but there was nothing ever consummated in a scene. So they rewrote the end of the movie so we actually do end up together. So, now it makes sense to have a song that has something to do with a relationship, and now we're going to be together.
Jamie: They're gonna write that in?
Vanessa: Yeah.