My Favorite Song: Disco helped Gabourey Sidibe get through dark ‘Precious’ scenes

Gabourey Sidibe stars on Lee Daniels‘ Empire, a TV show about a hip-hop dynasty. And in reality, the actress says she uses music “as a tool for my entire life.” Sidibe’s film debut came in Daniels’ Precious: Based on the Novel Push … Continued

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SiriusXM Editor

May 20, 2016

Gabourey Sidibe stars on Lee Daniels‘ Empire, a TV show about a hip-hop dynasty. And in reality, the actress says she uses music “as a tool for my entire life.”

Sidibe’s film debut came in Daniels’ Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire in 2009. And on My Favorite Song with John Benjamin Hickey, she revealed how music helped her get through the movie’s dark subject matter.

“What music does is it lifts my mood,” explained Sidibe, 33. “So whenever we had like a really, really heavy scene — I don’t know how he did it and I don’t know when I did it — but Lee Daniels, he had a disco ball installed above Precious’ bed on set. And so we had to shoot a scene where I was, you know, being abused by my father, and afterward, as soon as the scene was done, he pushed a button and the ball dropped and disco music came on. It alleviated the heaviness of the mood.”