The Verge: Gabourey Sidibe

Lee had mentioned at the New York Film Festival that his rehearsals are the most candid, intimate time he has with his actors. Can you elaborate a bit on how that process worked with you?

He's just so very honest. Instead of rehearsing, like for the first 10 scenes, he would have me learn them by myself, and then he'd say, "Come over to my place and we'll rehearse." And we wouldn't rehearse at all. We would just talk. We'd talk about him -- his insecurities, his fears, his likes, his dislikes, all of it. And what it was was building a relationship. It was rehearsal for what I thought he might want when we were shooting, but it wasn't a rehearsal for the script or the story. It was rehearsal for the relationship between he and I. He's so open and so honest, and all his walls are down. Which makes my walls come down and makes me more trusting of him. And he has to be more trusting of me in order to tell me those things. So it builds a relationship, it builds a trust. And by the time he yells "Action," we all know where to go. We all know what to think. We're all moving on one accord.

Again, Precious has been accruing momentum and hype and buzz for nearly a year now, and we've got another four months of awards season. How are you holding up?

Yeah, since about March, people have been saying things like, "The storm's coming, are you ready?" And I didn't believe it. Now I'm at the very tip of the storm, and it's... weird. It's just life. It's a lot of things I've got to show up for. Yeah, it can be tiring, but it's so exhilarating. I'm moving on sheer adrenaline. It's so much fun. It just depends on what side of the coin you're looking at. Like I have to be on an airplane -- but I just on an airplane. But I was in a different city! It was awesome to be in a different city. So that's fun.

Part of the fun, I suppose, is that German Vogue photo shoot you did with Bruce Weber and Heidi Klum?

Yeah! That was bad-ass. It was just a photo shoot of her teaching me to model. It was very cute, very tongue in cheek -- like a "model-off," I guess. It was the cutest thing. She's yelling, "OK! Be edgy!" I was like, "What does that mean? How am I supposed to be 'edgy'?" And she goes, "I don't know!" And I'm like, "Well, you made it up!" So she comes over. "OK, what's edgy? This..." [Sidibe strikes a fierce pose.] And we'd stand side-by-side and do it. And then she's like, "Be soft!" It was just her screaming random things at me and then showing me how to pose. Then I'd stand next to her and do it, too. [Laughs.] I loved it.

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