Courtney Love has been making a slow but steady comeback in Hollywood after focusing on music for a while, and recently she told Extra that she’s just been offered a film role after some impressive stints on television.
While she declined to mention what the movie role is, Love said she’s so happy to be playing another character on the silver screen.
“It’s good to be out of actor jail… actor jail sucks,” Courtney Love said.
She has been acting, though, with parts on Sons Of Anarchy and in an off-Broadway play called Kansas City Choir Boy, and most recently she’s spent time as Elle Dallas on the mega-hit Empire, starring Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson. As an aging rock star who was integral to the success of the show’s record label, Love says she’s had a blast stretching her acting muscles.
“I’m not playing myself. I did get some distance between me and Elle, because back in the day, I would never play rock stars. … I got offered Joplin and other rock stars and I just would never play them. It’s a new dawn. I’m 50 and this is a second shot at acting in general, and I’m so blessed. … I love [creator] Lee Daniels so much for giving me this part and letting me come back to something that’s juicy and really exciting,” Love said.
Love said there have been some tough moments on the show as her character battles some inner demons, and also with the songs she sings, as Dallas does a lot of R&B music. The former grunge goddess said she studied several famous singers to learn a few tricks along the way.
“In the next episode I do an original song that’s much more in my register. … I worked with one of Timbaland’s guys, this guy Rafael Saadiq, and we worked really hard on it. It’s an original song, but I’m not used to doing songs that I didn’t write. So, I really had to pull out every trick in my arsenal, anything I’ve stolen from Michael Stipe or Bono. And I studied some Whitney and some Mariah,” Courtney Love said.