Flash points where player meets part

TERRENCE HOWARD

“Hustle & Flow”

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TERRENCE HOWARD sees his performance as DJay, the pimp and wannabe hip-hop star in “Hustle & Flow,” as a collaborative effort -- something that would have been impossible without the continuous support of his colleagues. “At the beginning of the table reading,” he says, “we made a pact that we could do whatever it is we could do.”

The cast had been in rehearsals, he says, but “it was still disjointed because we were still frightened. Frightened by the long hands of mediocrity we continued to hold. We thought, ‘We can destroy our careers here or propel our vision of the disenfranchised, bring truth to a group of people that has been [stigmatized] for so many years.’ ”

So around the table, they joined hands and prayed. “We said that no matter what each of us did, we would not let each other fall. We would lend ourselves to each other. And from that moment on, we were a unit.”

Working 18 hours a day for 26 days, Howard says he felt his identity as an actor slip away, blur into that of his character. “I stopped being Terrence Howard and became DJay, a spearhead of anyone who has had dreams and watched them crumble in front of their eyes.”

The women who played prostitutes to DJay’s pimp treated him as a father figure. “We were a family,” he says. “On and off set. And if we felt that we were slipping into stereotype, all we had to do was look around, because we had the people we were playing walking around on the set. I had pimps bringing me lemonade.

It was beautiful, man.”

During one scene, Anthony Anderson’s character hit him in the face; as Howard stumbled backward, he grabbed a table for balance and broke his little finger. “I knew if we went to the hospital, we’d lose a day shooting,” he says. “So I said, ‘I need someone to fix this,’ and Anthony Anderson grabs my baby finger and pulls it straight. I will be permanently disfigured,” he adds with a laugh, “but I’ll wear the scar proudly. That’s how it was; we were all one voice.”

Howard says he knew all along that the cast was doing something special, something impossible to re-create or even explain. “When the movie was done, I thought to myself, ‘If I never make another movie, I will be satisfied.’ ”

-- Mary McNamara