September 23, 2005 @ 11:44 am

Blair Underwood Makes His Erotic Debut

by: Alyssa Rashbaum

Underwood has penned (along with co-author Tananarive Due) a series of novels starring fictitious former gigolo, Teddison Harwick. The Chronicles of Teddison Hardwick find our hero "trying to get out of the game [when] a murder happens around him," said Underwood. "He's trying to uncover some clues and realizes he has a knack for detective work. So this launches an entire series of murder mystery detective books." left When not working on sexy sleuthing stories, Underwood has also been hard at work doing that other thing he does so well - acting. The actor is starring in a new film called G, based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic novel, The Great Gatsby. In the film, Underwood plays Chip Hightower (Tom Buchannan in Gatsby), a philandering Wall Street-er who is married to the beautiful social climber, Sky (Fitzgerald's Daisy). An unsavory individual for sure, but Underwood was able to eke out a few redeeming qualities about Hightower to humanize him. "I think his redeeming quality is he does own up to making mistakes in the past and he's trying to fight for his marriage," he said. "His reasons change. In the beginning, his marriage is something of a status symbol, and then he realizes he was about to lose the woman that he does in fact love and he tries to regain her trust and her confidence in the end." The title character, Summer G, is the man Hightower could lose his lady to. A wealthy hip hop producer who has moved into a Hamptons’ mansion to be closer to the object of his affection, Sky, G is "an amalgamation of Jay-Z, Diddy and Russell Simmons, those kind of high-profile rap moguls that we know of today, in terms of what they represent to the American public and the lives they live in the Hamptons and all over the world," according to Underwood . What drew Underwood to the film wasn't any character in particular, but instead the "image of people of color, well-dressed, educated, stylish, funky. The hip hop culture intermingled with the background of the Hamptons in New York. The elite, beachfront, society." Unfortunately, most movie studios didn't agree with his opinion and since they couldn't quite figure out a way to make the director's vision marketable, the film opened last week in limited release. It didn't help the director’s cause that more than half of the actors in the film were virtually unknown, having most recently played their G characters on stage when the initial play version was showing in New York. "It's not a safe bet and it's not the cookie-cutter formula," said Underwood of both the reason he liked the film and the reason studios were so resistant to release it. And Underwood is quick to add he likes to steer clear of anything cookie-cutter, whether it’s the roles he chooses in films or his other projects. Among his upcoming roles are an abusive fiancée in Tyler Perry's new film, Medea's Family Reunion, which hits screens February 24, and a 500 year-old immortal in the film version of Tananarive Due’s novel, My Soul to Keep. He has also completed another book, this one aimed at an audience that would likely prefer The Hardy Boys to Hardwick. Before I Got Here is a compilation of insights from youth, which was inspired by one of Underwood’s three children. “[The book] was inspired by my son who is now eight but when he was four he said something to me that I thought was profound. It just blew my mind. Essentially he was speaking of the last days and double entendres. How words and phrases mean two things, have two meanings…. He was speaking of the rapture, the end of time, the last days. And I said well who told you that. And he said ‘God told me when he made me, but I only had one ear at the time, so I could only hear a little.’ I was speechless.” Trusting his instincts, Underwood forged ahead with a book of children’s wisdom. It’s that same ability to listen to himself and not follow Hollywood trends that has allowed this actor to explore his range, from playing a cheating husband, to being a doting father, from playing a mysterious immortal, to writing about sexually-charged murder mysteries. G is playing in select theaters now (Watch Movie Trailer), and Before I Got Here will be in stores October 25. Read more vibe.com news headlines.

Article tags: Blair Underwood, The Hamptons 

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