From acclaimed filmmaker Vanessa Roth, the documentary Mary J. Blige’s My Life, which is available to stream at Amazon Prime Video, celebrates and reflects on the 25th anniversary of the trailblazing 1994 My Life album from recording artist Mary J. Blige. The incomparable singer, producer and actress with multi-platinum albums, Grammy Awards and Academy Award nominations, deserves the icon status and “Queen of Hip Hop Soul” title that she’s achieved, but her road to success also included battles with abuse, depression and addiction, and her personal story has connected with millions of fans around the world.

During this virtual 1-on-1 interview with Collider, which you can both watch and read, Blige talked about why the My Life album is so important to her, the deep connection she has with her fans, learning that she has to be responsible for her own life path, and always searching for the most challenging thing in her career.

Collider: Out of all of your albums, you talk in this film about how your second album, My Life, is the most important because of everything you had going on then. When did you realize how important that specific album is, what it means to you, and what it means to other people, and what made you decide that you wanted to get deep and make a documentary about all of it?

MARY J. BLIGE: Well, it was really later in life that I realized it was such an important album. I knew it before two years ago, but it was later in life, after 1994. And two years ago, the world was celebrating the 25th anniversary of the My Life album, I was celebrating the 25th anniversary of the My Life album, Billboard magazine and Time magazine were celebrating the 25th anniversary. It was just going crazy, and so were the fans. So, I said, “This is the perfect time to have the cameras follow me around, get testimonies, and do a documentary on the My Life album while we’re all celebrating. It was extremely important to go back and talk about where that pain came from. It was such a painful, dark album for me, but it healed a lot of people. Four millions fans went out and bought that album, but when I went to write the album, I wasn’t coming from a place where I wanted everybody to see how vulnerable I am. I was dying and going through hell, and I just wanted to be happy. I just wanted to be free from all this pain. And then, four million people responded and were like, “Well, Mary, we’re suffering too.” It was a pivotal point in my life, where the fans actually helped me to see subconsciously that, “Wow, I can’t just kill myself now because I’m responsible for a whole bunch of lives right now.” So, I had to go back and let people see where the pain came from and just how much pain there’s been since then. It just was painful.

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I’m also a concert photographer and I’ve photographed you on concert, so I’ve seen firsthand that connection that you have with your fans, in that sense. What’s it like to hear so many of those stories, over the years of your career, and to hear about so many people whose lives you’ve helped? Does it feel like both a beautiful blessing and the heaviest burden to hear the pain that all of these other people have gone through, but how you’ve helped uplift them?

BLIGE: It’s definitely a beautiful blessing, but it’s a responsibility now. It’s like, “Wow.” But at the same time, what I love about my fans is that they know that my life isn’t perfect as well and I’m not gonna always get it right, but they respect the fact that I respect that this is a responsibility. They have children now that I have to look out for. So, it’s a beautiful thing, but it’s a huge responsibility.

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Did you understand the rules and the boundaries that you were breaking, early on in your career, or was that something that you needed some time and reflection on, to come to that conclusion?

BLIGE: I had no idea what I was doing, early in my career. I was afraid, I was on guard, I didn’t trust anybody, and I just was going off on anyone that would invade that space. I didn’t know what I was doing until later, I found out that I wasn’t doing a lot of things right and I was hurting a lot of people because I was hurting myself. I had to grow up and realize that my life is my life, and I have to be responsible for my life.

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You say in this film that you’ve pretty much done everything that you wanted to do. Once you get to that point, how do you figure out what’s next? How do you continue to keep things interesting and exciting for yourself, and how do you stay inspired?

BLIGE: I think you go for the most challenging thing and the thing that you’re probably the most afraid of or is something that you can learn from, like with acting. I’ve been acting in little things since 1996, but these big movies like Mudbound and the show Ghost, those are challenging things. I think you just go for the most challenging thing and the thing that you’ve never done before, like the production company. I’ve never done that before. I have a production company that I’m seriously involved in. When you’re in entertainment, at some point, you wanna be behind the camera or you wanna be producing something.

What stands out to you more, the first time you heard one of your songs on the radio, or the first time you saw a movie poster or a trailer for something you had an acting role in?

BLIGE: The first time I heard my song on the radio stands out because I knew, in that moment, I was gonna be able to take my family out of the misery and the environment we were living in. I knew that I was gonna be able to save us. That’s how I felt about that moment. That was how I could get my mother out of the projects, and get my sisters and my family out of there.

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When it comes to acting roles, do you have a dream project that you’d like to do? Is there somebody from history or from some sort of source material you’d love to play?

BLIGE: You know, I don’t. Right now, I’m just trying to focus on what I’m doing. I don’t have a dream, except to be great at what I’m doing right now with this TV show (Power Book II: Ghost for Starz).

With this new TV show and after doing The Umbrella Academy, are you enjoying getting to spend a bit longer period of time with a character and getting to really delve into someone?

BLIGE: Yes, I love it. I love the writer that writes this stuff, and I love being able to fill in this character with all of these real places I have to travel. I love it.

If someone told you 25 years ago, when you put this album out, that you’d be where you are now, how would you have reacted to that? Do you think the younger version of you would have just thought that was crazy?

BLIGE: Yes. I’d have been like, “Yeah, whatever.”

How do you think that version of you would feel about the life path you’ve had?

BLIGE: That me would not be able to handle any of this because you have to be a more mature, responsible, kind person, and that person wasn’t too kind, she wasn’t responsible, she didn’t really trust anybody. She was bad.

Mary J. Blige’s My Life is available to stream at Amazon Prime Video.

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