When casting the movie role of the sexist newspaper editor in "The Help," producer Brunson Green said he and director Tate Taylor didn't want to follow Hollywood stereotype.
"I figured let's do something outside the 'angry editor' you see in Spider-Man and other movies," said the producer in a phone interview.
So they called Leslie Jordan.
"Tate and I have known Leslie for about 12 years. He was our only choice. I figured Leslie would be a great twist and have a little social commentary about the period of the 1960s," Green said.
Tuesday night, Jordan will join Hollywood A-listers and fellow cast members Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard and Sissy Spacek on the red carpet for the Los Angeles premiere of "The Help."
The movie, already garnering Oscar buzz, is based on the best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett. Director Tate Taylor and Stockett were childhood friends in Jackson, Miss.
In addition to casting Jordan, Taylor also recruited other friends with whom he had worked: Octavia Spencer and Allison Janney.
"It's the best movie I've ever seen," said Jordan in a phone interview from Michigan. "It's so moving. It's the first movie that ever got it right about black-white relations."
"The Help" tells the story of Skeeter Phelan (played by Stone), new college graduate and aspiring writer. Skeeter convinces the black maids of Jackson, Miss., to tell their stories of working for white families, which she records for an expose. Amid the fear, distrust and racial tension of the early 1960s, the women become united in their common bond to change racial inequality.
"It's our generation," Jordan said of baby boomers raised in the 1960s. The actor said his family, and almost all others he knew growing up in that decade, had domestic help.
Jordan said that in looking back he sees how much those women silently contributed to the households in which they worked.
"When I was about 7, I asked my mother, 'Where does Roberta go at night?' She answered that she went home. I remember being flabbergasted that she had some type of life outside of our home - and that's the gist of this movie, black women raising white children.
"Mama told me years later that Roberta and her husband would go to the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. at night and polish floors. They put three people through college. I don't remember ever hugging Roberta or thanking her - she just was."
Green said Jordan's scenes with Emma Stone, in which he tells the job-seeker she can write a cleaning column for his paper, were the first shot for the movie.
"When we got the dailies back, the studio was so excited because they thought Leslie was fantastic. It was a great start to the fun movie we ended up making," said the producer.
Although Jordan was originally to have been in just one scene, he was brought back to Mississippi to shoot more.
"I went back there for nine days. Here we were - Sissy Spacek, Emma Stone, Allison Janney, Octavia Spencer and me. I do the bunny hop with Sissy Spacek," he added, chuckling.
About Leslie JordanLeslie Jordan is a graduate of Brainerd High School and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He won an Emmy Award for his recurring role as cynical Beverley Leslie on "Will and Grace." He is the author of "My Trip Down the Pink Carpet," the autobiography that is also the basis of his one-man stage show.
Jordan said the movie's screenplay varies somewhat from the book's plot in that the movie highlights the Medgar Evers murder. Taylor used that assassination as the turning point that convinces the maids to air their employers' dirty laundry.
"Tate got the rights to use the Life magazine cover of Evers' son crying at the funeral. We rebuilt the set in LA, they flew Emma down from New York, and she and I shot another scene where she's leafing through that magazine, just horrified." But Jordan said his character is only concerned that the journalist meets her deadline.
Since filming wrapped, Jordan played the role of Big Al - a car dealership owner dressed in blinged-out suits that Porter Wagoner would have envied - in a Broadway production of "Lucky Guy." The musical closed after one week.
"It was a country-western musical written 30 years ago. The songs were catchy, but the story was hoaky and the jokes were dated," he explained.
He took his one-man show to London in January and February.
"I was in an 800-seat theater in the West End called the Apollo. On one side was 'Priscilla: Queen of the Desert' and on the other was Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.'"
However, he soon found he was quite sought-after for British talk shows because of the popularity of "Will and Grace" in that country. One show even gave him top billing over pop singer Katy Perry.
Jordan said this fall he will take his one-man show on the road again and is in the process of booking shows in Savannah, Ga., Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta. Check his schedule at www.thelesliejordan.com.