In the Fried Archives: Grace Jones

From 2017: Bloodlight, Bami, Bowie, Twerking, A One Man Show, and hitchhiking to Paris on acid.

Tonight is the opening night benefit concert for BRIC and it features Grace Jones and Janelle Monaé. To celebrate, revisiting a true bucket list moment, getting to call Grace Jones via satellite phone out on the hillsides of Negril back in 2017 to talk about the intimate portrait of her, Bloodlight and Bami.

Where are you now?

Jamaica. It’s absolutely beautiful. I try to stay about six months out of the year, in and out. But I’m here a lot. Nowhere else like Jamaica.

In the film, we see you visiting your newborn granddaughter. How old is she now and how is it being a grandmother?

She’s fantastic. She’s nine now. She’s full of energy and super-talented. She paints, she plays piano, she dances. She comes over and gets into all of my clothes and does fashion shows and talent shows for me. It’s a lot of fun. She’s vey athletic as well, she loves to swim like I do.

Do you see yourself in her?

Of course. She’s very independent and very strong from when she was very little. I remember walking with her in the Galleries Lafayette in Paris and she didn’t want to hold anybody’s hands, so she got knocked over by the crowds. I love that independence of her. She loves coming to Jamaica for Christmas, never wants to leave.

You talk about the Jones family in the film, that they “act younger as they get older.” Do you feel that way?

I guess so, but I hope that I’m wiser anyhow. We start looking younger, but I hope to be wiser. Not to reflect on how you look, but what you’ve learned.

What struck you about Sophie’s film?

Ah well (laugh)…what struck me was that I thought it was going to be so difficult to pull together. We had so much material after twelve years and I didn’t see any of the film before it was finished. I love the way it went in and out of the performance side, the recording side. She really captured the stuff that you go through as you are recording and working and doing talk shows and performances. And then coming in and out of the family and the whole part of me in Jamaica with my family, the way she went back and forth connecting the private intimate life of me to the part where you’re performing out there onstage with me. I just loved the way she saw that vision, because I lived it like that.

Was there a part of the film where you thought it was too personal? Too revealing?

No never! Sophie when she was filming was like a fly on the wall. Obviously, I felt very comfortable with her, so she was like an insider. I felt like I could be myself. I’m sure there was plenty of other stuff that didn’t even get in there.

Sophie also made a film about your brother, a preacher in Los Angeles. What was it about that film that made you decide to let her tell your story?

The film with my brother was completely different. It was dealing with the church and how he deals with all of that, and then about him. I don’t think it went as intimate on our film as it did with him. That’s how I met her initially, I was invited to a screening for my brother’s film. And we hit it off and we just got along really great. And I just said, we should do something. I also saw her other films, the one about the German artist and I knew she definitely has a vision and a passion for what she’s doing. So I felt completely safe in a way that I could be unsafe, if you know what I mean. I felt really safe with her so that I could also let everything hang out. Literally!

When I think about you in films: A View to a Kill, Conan the Destroyer, Boomerang, or even A One Man Show, there’s this distance and this toughness. And the film reveals a more intimate side of you.

In those films, I’m playing characters. I’m trying to make sure you don’t think about Grace Jones in those films, you think about May Day or Zula or Strangé, I try to make sure those characters were completely apart from Grace Jones in performance...

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