While Hustle & Flow is hardly a mainstream slam dunk, its Sundance heat should guarantee plenty of critical attention. And with its contemporary crunk themes and MTV affiliation, the movie could woo the much-coveted hip-hop generation. All of this should spell good news for Howard, who also appears in this May's Crash with Don Cheadle and Sandra Bullock and has just wrapped Singleton's Four Brothers. ''I knew that Terrence was going to get such a bump off of Hustle & Flow,'' says the Boyz N the Hood helmer, ''that I wanted to benefit first.'' Meanwhile, Spike Lee is after Howard to play Joe Louis in a possible biopic.
''Hopefully, people will now start to look at him for leading roles,'' says Allain. ''Denzel's one of those actors who is gorgeous and deep. That's what Terrence has.''
''Man, Denzel can keep his s---,'' says Howard later, bristling at the big-name comparisons he's earned lately. ''I'm just trying to pay my mortgage off.''
If you take him at his word, Howard considers acting little more than an unwanted inheritance. Though raised primarily in ''terrible'' Cleveland projects, he seems equally affected by the few years he spent in L.A., dodging gangs while watching Mom swat at the acting bug. ''She had four kids,'' he recalls. ''She'd try and take off time for auditions, but she couldn't. She would come home disappointed [and] pour all of that into me. So I've been living the life she wanted.''
His own passions are myriad and maybe a little conflicting. A self-taught musician, he claims to have always wanted to be a singer-songwriter (he even tried to weigh in on Djay's lyrics for Hustle, but Brewer balked). Yet Howard also wishes he'd stuck with the physics and chemical engineering he studied in college. Looming over all this is his faith.
In high school, Howard came in contact with the strict doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses, and has been limping toward baptism ever since. ''The fact that I'm not in the Truth'' — as Witnesses affectionately refer to the religion — ''eats at me. When people say, 'Are you a Witness?' I'd love to say, 'Yes!' but I can't. I would bring reproach on the true God because of my life and the roles that I have played.'' Still, Howard's wife is raising their children as Witnesses, and in a few years he hopes to quit ''playing pretend'' for a living and join them. ''I don't care about Oscars,'' says Howard.
Perhaps he's just bracing himself for the ups and downs of Hollywood. Ask him about his Sundance triumph and Howard shrugs it off with an Eagles tune: ''People you meet, they all seem to know you,'' he sings, with his first true hint of glee all day. ''Even your old friends treat you like you're something new/Johnny-come-lately, the new kid in town. . . .'' Then he points to former It boys like Adrien Brody and Benicio Del Toro. ''Pretty soon, it's 'Hey, I remember you. You were at Sundance and you had that hot film. Wow. What happened?'''
At the end of the day, it takes only a tender filet mignon from a pricey steak house to lift Howard's mood. Chewing with delight, he concedes that, yes, it is nice to know that powerful filmmakers are backing him. ''If somebody like Spike Lee's like, 'I'm willing to bet $80 million on this man,''' says Howard, ''now that's some big-dog stuff.'' Still, much to the discomfort of the waitress hovering nearby, he'd rather critique the wine than discuss his future as a movie star.
