'A Raisin in the Sun' Roundtable

For those with Oscar-speech fatigue, you can catch some stellar performances in, yes, a TV movie on ABC tonight. It's called A Raisin in the Sun (read the EW review). Maybe you've heard of it — the 1959 Lorraine Hansberry play about African-American upward mobility that was remade as a Sidney Poitier film a year later and again revived on Broadway in 2004. Reprising their stage roles for the adaptation are Sean Combs, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, and Sanaa Lathan. They play the Youngers, a family trying to find their American dream while living on Chicago's South Side in the 1950s. When Lena (Rashad) finally gets the $10,000 life insurance check she's been waiting for, they have to work out how it gets spent. Walter Lee Jr. (Combs) has his heart set on starting a business, his wife Ruth (McDonald) simply wants a bigger home that doesn't creak and has a bathroom of its own, and his sister Beneatha (Lathan) wants to finish up college so she can become a doctor. Rounding out the troupe is John Stamos, who plays Mr. Linder, the neighborhood association rep who hasn't, let's just say, seen the light.

Last month, EW.com was on hand for Raisin's premiere at Sundance (it's the first-ever TV pic to play at the festival), and spoke with the cast and director Kenny Leon about the significance of the film in 2008.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So Raisin has been around in different incarnations since 1959. What motivated you to be a part of it?

AUDRA McDONALD: It took some motivation. We sort of felt the same way, I think. Why do it? We were approached [for the play] and were like, ''Huh.'' I didn't know how we would do it differently, or what new life we would breathe into it.

SANAA LATHAN: I got a little angry because I was like, ''Why are they doing this again on Broadway? We have so many more stories to tell.'' And then I read it, and was like, ''This is amazing. This is a classic.'' It transcends time; it speaks to all races, genders.

What were your apprehensions aside from that?

McDONALD: I had apprehensions about Sean. I met with Sean after a show I was doing, and he just got rid of his entire posse and his entourage. We just sat in a hotel room and read through the scenes.

LATHAN: Was it just you and him?

McDONALD: Just the two of us. It was a chance to feel each other out and be like, ''Can I work with you? Do we have personalities that will click?''

Having seen Sean as this hip-hop guy...

McDONALD: Yeah, who he was. So that convinced me, and also to be humble enough to do that on his part.

Sean, Kenny: why did you want to do Raisin now — again?

SEAN COMBS: Why not?

Audra and Sanaa said they had apprehensions about it.

COMBS: What? They had apprehensions?

Yes, they were partly concerned about doing a story that had been told before.

KENNY LEON: I got to talk with them. Apprehensions.

COMBS: They started that yesterday. That was their new talking. That was something they felt was colorful for their interviews. [Laughs]

LEON: Raisin is still a story that really needs to be told in terms of the love, dreams, and hope in it. But more than that: When we first hooked up in 2004, I found that Sean and I had something in common. My father was not present, his father was killed when he was young, both of us were raised by our grandmothers. We also had a commitment to bring young people to see the story [on a] Broadway stage. So when the idea for the film came up, we wanted to continue to tell our story.

NEXT PAGE: The cast on Raisin's relevance today

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