John Wilson

And suddenly there was a sort of kerfuffle around the camera and they said, would you like to audition?

for the lead and i you know i nearly fell over of course i would audition to the really so i auditioned did a little bit of the lead bit and they said and would you like to meet prince this evening so yeah but i mean it was sort of unbelievable another kind of enormous turning point and i went off and did the film and learned so much i didn't even know you had to do the same thing twice when you did a close-up or a you know a wide shot or a close i didn't know you had to match things

Under Cherry Moon, Prince plays one of a pair of brothers who are sort of... They're kind of doing cocktail bar pianist and they're taking out old ladies.

They're kind of on the make, aren't they?

They're on the make and I'm a very rich girl.

They're sort of grifters in a way.

Yeah, you've got it.

So what did you make of the role?

Or did you not care?

I didn't really care that much.

I mean, it was it was it was no, I did care at the time.

I did care.

Absolutely did care because I knew it was a sort of important thing for me to do.

Don't forget, this was just after Purple Rain, which was a huge hit.

But I still couldn't quite believe that I was actually there.

And I knew that some of the lines were a little bit dodged, but you have to kind of just grit your teeth and get through them and just do my best and try and cry at the right point and try and laugh at the right point and just be as good as you can and learn it as you're doing it.

Were you a Prince fan at the time?

A huge Prince fan.

All the time when I was doing this very serious Marguerite Dioras play, I was listening to Around the World in a Day on repeat.

I mean, I hope you won't mind me saying that Under a Cherry Moon is probably not the greatest film on your CV in terms of quality.