Mo’Nique

Mary Jones is a monster. Entering her living room, where she lurks in near-darkness watching television and seething with unquenchable rage, is like stepping into the dank lair of the hydra -- but so much worse, because it feels so real.

And then Mo’Nique, the actress who plays this hateful, child-abusing creature, comes sweeping into the room wearing a bright blue outfit and a wide smile.

Clearly, Mary, the character in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” is a transformative turn, but it’s hard to reconcile that soulless wretch with the vivacious comedian and talk-show host who freewheelingly answers any question put to her -- Is it true she was a phone-sex supervisor? “I loved that job! We kept families together” -- and who once directed a documentary about reassuring guilty women in prison they were still worthy of love. “We’re quick to judge; we’re quick to say, ‘You are no good.’ I believe everybody deserves love,” she says of “I Coulda Been Your Cellmate!” It’s a simple yet complex notion -- an idea of neither forgiving nor forgetting but acknowledging the humanity of even those who have committed inhuman acts -- and it is the key to the authenticity the role of Mary Jones demands.

“Why this movie? Because it’s honest. And it’s time for this story to be told,” she says. “You have so many people suffering this type of abuse. And they’ve swept it under the carpet. So that mental illness just keeps going, from generation to generation, nothing’s done about it. I couldn’t tell this story as Mo’Nique the comedian.”

In crafting the horror of Mary in “Precious,” director Lee Daniels eschews foreboding music, sweeping camera moves and over-the-top makeup and costumes; he simply presents at face value an ordinary-seeming person who has been horribly abusing her daughter for years. It’s a terrific challenge for any actress, much less one with so sunny a public persona. Daniels had given Mo’Nique her first dramatic turn in 2005’s “Shadowboxer,” as a character originally written as a skinny, buxom blond -- and coincidentally named Precious. Speaking by phone from Stockholm, Daniels says he “just knew” it was right to cast the comedian in such a brutal, naked role.

“Mo’Nique and I understand each other on another level. So when I’m directing her, I swear to God it’s in tongues,” he says. “We had no rehearsal. . . . I’m behind the camera and my fingers -- I’m doing the exact same motion, and whispering, and she’s repeating it. We were one. It’s a bizarre relationship, one a director would kill for.”

Now 42 and a mother of three, with about two dozen film and TV credits to her name (including her run as Nikki for UPN’s five seasons of “The Parkers”), the busy entertainer now stars in her own BET chat program, “The Mo’Nique Show.”

“I’m not an interviewer,” she’s quick to point out. “Those people are my friends. They’re coming to have a conversation, baby. However it goes, it goes. We’re into positivity, we’re into uplifting, and letting the world know what you want them to know.”

As with the women in “Cellmate,” Mo’Nique makes no excuses for Mary Jones, but says it was the beating heart under that armadillo hide she clung to, especially as it is laid bare at film’s end, allowing audiences a glimpse into what made her so vile and eliciting a moment of sympathy.

“I remember the call I got from Mr. Daniels: He said, ‘You make people hate you and love you at the same time.’ And we both sat on the phone and cried. Because we come from such a judgmental society, you don’t even want to know the story, you just want to judge it, close the book and that’s it,” she says.

The film has already won honors (including five nominations at the Film Independent Spirit Awards and an acting laurel for Mo’Nique at Sundance), but those aren’t the reactions most affecting the actress.

“I did an interview last week, we were talking about the molestation and I heard [the interviewer] get sad, and I said, ‘Brother, this ain’t a sad time. We should be excited because the story’s getting out there. And someone’s going to say, “I am Mary Jones,” like an Asian brother said to me, or someone’s going to say, “I am Precious and please get me out of this situation.” ’ I’m excited about the response it has gotten from people crying, ‘Oh, my God, it changed my life.’

“People keep talking about the Oscar race, but we’ve already won. Because when that Asian brother said, ‘I am Mary Jones,’ and we hugged and he boo-hooed, and I said, ‘Congratulations for your honesty, go get you some help,’ we have already won.”

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