Stars get hot, heavy in ‘Mea Culpa’
If you thought the vase-making scene from “Ghost” or food-eating extravaganza in “9 Weeks” were hot and heavy, a paint-themed coupling in the Netflix legal drama and erotic thriller “Mea Culpa” will steam up the windows.
Kelly Rowland, best known as part of Destiny’s Child from 1997 to 2006, has been more focused in recent years on acting, including Disney+’s “Fantasy Football” with Omari Hardwick, the Netflix’s “The Curse of Bridge Hollow” and now her biggest role yet as a Chicago defense attorney in Tyler Perry’s “Mea Culpa,” now streaming on Netflix.
Rowland is in almost every major scene in the movie, the protagonist with an unemployed husband whose overbearing mother was making her life miserable. She takes on the defense of a famous painter, Zyair, played with sexy abandon by Trevante Rhodes.
Zyair is accused of killing his girlfriend and the evidence, albeit circumstantial, is problematic. Despite the fact Mea’s brother-in-law is the district attorney eager to take Zyair down, she takes on the case because she has bills to pay, and she’s intrigued by Zyair.
Rowland, who also came on as an executive producer, said she was excited to join a Perry vehicle for the first time but nervous given how quickly Perry works as a director.
“How am I going to remember all these lines?” she said. “And Trevante is just a G at this. I wanted to be able to meet him at his level. I put so much pressure on myself but it was good because it made me uncomfortable.”
Rhodes credits Tyler
Perry Studios for helping him get his first sizable role in a TV show in OWN’s “If Loving Is Wrong” a decade ago. “His studio was the first prominent studio to reach out and give me an audition,” he said.
Now he’s back in a much bigger, much meatier role as Zyair, whose spacious loft packed with paintings feels both alluring and dangerous to Mea. She has difficulty keeping boundaries with a client who seems more interested in Mea herself than his own innocence.
“We met the day before we started shooting,” Rowland said. “We didn’t even have a meal. It was a hug. But the hug made me feel very safe, very respected, very comfortable. ”
Indeed, the most memorable scene in the movie involves an illicit romantic entanglement between Mea and Zyair featuring copious amounts of body paint.
“It was amazing,” Rhodes said. “It was fun. It was a very creative experience. I felt very in tune.”
“It was cold,” Rowland said.
Perry had to convince Rowland to take this role, which was nothing like she had done before.
“Tyler literally supported me,” she said. “I asked him for some time to think about it. I called another friend of mine, and he said I should do it. So I said ‘yes.’ ”
March 4 birthdays:
Director Adrian Lyne is 83. Musician Emilio Estefan is 71. Actor Catherine O’Hara is 70. Actor Mykelti Williamson is 67. Actor Patricia Heaton is 66. Actor Steven Weber is 63. Drummer Jason Marsalis is 47. Actor Scott Michael Foster is 39. Actor Audrey Esparza is 38. Actor Josh Bowman is 36. Actor Jenna Boyd is 31.