Superstar Cher opens up about still working at 72 and her new role in Mamma Mia! movie

THE legendary Cher, who at 72 is still very much in demand the world over, opens up about her life and why Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again — her first movie role in seven years — was a job she couldn’t refuse. EXCLUSIVE AUDIO.

CHER is doing pretty well for herself for a woman who describes herself as lazy.

“I am a really lazy person who works a lot,” the singer tells BW Magazine.

“Any time anybody wants me to do something, ‘Do you want to do that?’ I’m like, ‘No.’ And then I always seem to find myself doing stuff.”

Legendary and iconic are two words overused in entertainment journalism. Both are appropriate, however, for Cher, who at 72 is still very much in demand the world over.

Singer Cher has enjoyed a long and fruitful career — and it’s not over yet.

Few other artists live up to the description — Madonna, Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand — and most legends and icons are no longer with us — Elvis, Michael Jackson and Whitney to name a few.

“I didn’t expect myself to be doing anything now,” Cher says, almost shocked at her longevity.

“This was not my plan at all. You have people telling you your whole life it is almost over for you. And I used to say to people I didn’t like, writers and things like that, ‘I’ll be around when you’re gone,’ not believing it for a second but being pissed off and saying it — but, as it turns out, I am.”

Cher speaks with BW Magazine at London’s opulent Corinthia hotel before walking the red carpet at the world premiere of her new film, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

Ushered into a brightly lit suite with vases filled with colourful flowers, she appears like a queen on her throne — sitting on a corner sofa wearing black-and-white striped pants, a black laced blouse and wedges.

Cher in 2010 wearing one of her most iconic outfits. Picture: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

She isn’t always so well put together, she insists, though she laughs when asked if she ever wears “trackie dacks”.

“Are you kidding me? Do you ever see me do anything at home but look tacky?” she says, gesturing to long-time publicist Liz Rosenberg and manager Lindsay Scott.

Rosenberg laughs: “You make a tracksuit look really good Cher.”

Scott is also amused. “Not tracksuits like you’d wear,” he says, prompting Cher to jump in: “I mean I have Adidas and an old sloppy shirt and whatever. I was walking around in it this morning. I don’t like getting dressed up when I am not working. I like being just trashy and not really wearing anything special.”

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It is hard to imagine Cher walking down the street at all, let alone in a tracksuit.

“Well, I know, yeah but I wouldn’t walk down the street in tracksuit pants,” she says.

“I like to be really just grungy when I am not working.”

In the second Mamma Mia instalment Cher performs alongside an all-star cast — including Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan and Dominic Cooper.

She plays Seyfried’s on-screen grandmother Ruby Sheridan and, unsurprisingly, puts her stamp on ABBA tunes in the romantic musical comedy in which she shares a kiss with Andy Garcia after the pair duet on the song Fernando.

“It is scary, you don’t know someone and then all of a sudden you are kissing them,” she says.

“But you owe it to the character to do it right.”

Cher goes platinum blonde in her new movie in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

Garcia later agrees with the sentiment.

“You are in the trenches together and you get lost in the story and in the support of one another,” he says.

“The story of the song is very powerful. It is really out there, you’ve got to reach for it. There is an obligation for you to lose yourself in that in the deepest way possible. Their kiss was a natural thing.”

The film, released this week, is Cher’s first movie in seven years. Her other acting credits include Mask, The Witches of Eastwick, Mermaids, Tea With Mussolini and Silkwood. She won an Oscar for Moonstruck in 1988.

Garcia almost gushes when he talks about working with the superstar.

“It is not even something you’d put on a bucket list because it was beyond conceptual,” Garcia says.

“Acting with her, yes, but singing, I would think back to when I used to see her singing with Sonny.”

Cher was equally full of praise for her on-screen love interest.

“He was a dream. I think we really hit it off but it was kind of slow,” she says.

“I remember I saw him and we were dancing and we just got along. It is so important, I know you hear stories about actors who have worked with each other and the work has been great and they hated each other but I don’t think I could do that and thank God we didn’t have to.”

Cher in the new Mamma Mia! movie with Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper.

The singer says Mamma Mia, which comes 10 years after the first film, was a job she couldn’t refuse.

“With scripts, you have to be kind of in love with the script to spend a lot of time on it,” she says.

“This was easy because I didn’t have to work hard, I got to sing two songs and I was with a cast that was really amazing. I’d never had so much fun on a film. It was so easy it was like I wasn’t even working.”

For a lazy star, Cher has a lot going on. Having performed at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras’ 40th anniversary party earlier this year, she’s set to return to Australia for a run of shows nationally on her Here We Go Again Tour, starting at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre on September 26 and playing Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on October 18 and 20.

There’s also talk of new music. Her last album Closer To The Truth was released in 2013.

Singer Cher during the 40th annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade in Sydney. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

And a stage show based on her life — The Cher Show — is slated to open in Broadway later this year.

“I think luck is highly underrated. I think luck is 50 per cent of it,” she says of her many successes, including three Golden Globes and a Grammy Award.

“Talent is good but you know what, there are people more talented, there are people that have a higher degree of artistry but they are not lucky. I think luck has so much do with everything. I wasn’t planning to do this film. It just fell in my lap.”

I used to say to people I didn’t like, writers and things like that, ‘I’ll be around when you’re gone,’ not believing it for a second but being pissed off and saying it — but, as it turns out, I am.”

Cher, who was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in 1946, puts her instantly recognisable vocals down to luck also.

“You have to work at it but my doctor said I’ve got the chords of a 28-year-old girl. I don’t know why he picked that number, it seemed strange.”

Cher again speaks of being lazy, saying she does nothing special to look after her voice.

“I don’t,” she insists.

“I don’t smoke. I don’t drink, so that probably is good for them, but I don’t do anything.”

As for her music, Cher is well aware that her pop hits are anthems for all ages, standing up for equality in all its forms.

“I felt like an outsider when I was growing up,” she says.

“I didn’t really fit in. I didn’t really want to try to fit in, I kind of wanted to try but I wouldn’t have fitted in anyway so it wouldn’t have made any difference. So I know what it feels like to be different and you don’t forget it. You never really forget it, no matter how successful you become, no matter what, you always have empathy and know what it is like to feel different.

“There was this one guy, he had a poster of me on his wall and his dad ripped it off and said it was not right. He went out and he bought another one and said I gave him the strength to do this and fight his dad and not let him try to change him.

“I think that is important and that is something I am really proud of. It is good to have someone say be yourself no matter who you are.”

Cher has cultivated her own sense of style over the years.

It is on Twitter, and when she comes face-to-face with her fans, that Cher sees the effect her music has had on them. She has 3.3 million followers on Twitter alone and nearly 900,000 on Instagram. She uses social media to talk about issues she feels passionate about.

Last week, while in London, she lamented being in the same city as US President Donald Trump on his UK visit.

“I am not (afraid) and also I get in to trouble all the time but it doesn’t seem to last too long,” she says.

“It lasts in barrages. You say something that pisses a certain amount of people off and you are barraged with very unkind words.”

In London💋...Would Be COMPLETE HEAVEN IF.....You Know Who Wasn’t Here.
❤️Big 🎈

— Cher (@cher) July 12, 2018

On stage, though, is where she connects best.

“When I go out, my objective is always to make people feel really good, that is my job, it is the only thing I am supposed to go out and do,” she says of her upcoming Australian shows. “And so that is what my goal is. My goal is to go out and make people forget their problems for whatever amount of time and lift them up and that is my job.”

Kris Smith on the cover of this week’s BW magazine, inside The Saturday Daily Telegraph.

While regal in appearance and almost otherworldly with her perfect poise, Cher is genuinely interested and down to earth.

As this scribe says farewell, Scott tells Cher I am off to a yoga and meditation retreat in Romania following the interview.

“Look up Vlad the Impaler; I am so fascinated with him. When I see you again in Australia, you better tell me everything you learn about him.”

Of her own travel plans, Cher is looking forward to getting out and about when she lands Down Under.

“When I was in Australia the last time for Mardi Gras, we just went around looking at all the rich people’s houses and we went to Bondi Beach,” she says.

“A man took us all around … they look different than our houses. We were gone for hours just looking at stuff, going around in neighbourhoods and looking at things.”

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is out now.

Cher will play Newcastle Entertainment Centre on September 26; WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong, on October 16; Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney, October 18 and 20.

For details visit livenation.com.au

* FOR MORE EXLCUSIVE INTERVIEWS AND FEATURES, CHECK OUT SATURDAY’S BW MAGAZINE