Acting, Singing Just What Williams Needed for ‘Mo’ Better Blues’

Cynda Williams moved to New York last year to try to strike up a career in either acting or singing--”whichever I could get into first.” By a stroke of luck, no choice between the two was necessary. Auditioning as an unknown, the 24-year-old Chicago native was chosen as one of two female leads in Spike Lee’s “Mo’ Better Blues,” a character who just happens to be an aspiring singer.

The movie slipped out of theaters some time ago, but the sound-track LP, which features jazz saxophone star Branford Marsalis, has continued to sell. And Columbia Records recently released a single of Williams’ lone vocal number, “Harlem Blues,” a lovely, forgotten 1920s W. C. Handy ballad resurrected for the movie. Though miles away from any style now the rage on urban radio, it’s a surprise hit--now No. 15 and still rising on Billboard’s R&B; chart.

Williams hopes to get a recording contract out of the sudden hit, but just what she’d record is up in the air. “That’s one thing I’m trying to figure out, because I have the ability to do different kinds of music. Right now I’m in the process of figuring out my niche--which I think would be along the lines of light R&B; and jazz.”

It’s been noted with irony that while Williams and Joie Lee appear topless in the movie, Denzel Washington refused to strip for his role. Williams defends his stance and hers. “I from the onset was told: ‘There’s gonna be nudity involved. If you don’t want to be involved, then maybe you shouldn’t audition.’ So it was a choice that I made to do it, and Denzel’s choice was not to do it. He had that prerogative.”

Williams had a difficult role to essay, since it’s not always clear to viewers whether it’s true love or pure ambition fueling the two affairs she has in the film.

“I did not want to be the obvious gold-digger kind of person. Because I think that’s so boring, that’s the obvious thing to do--the good girl and the bad girl. So I tried to come across as someone who, yes, is ambitious, but also loved this guy. And I think I did a pretty good job about it.”