Image Source: Getty / Paul Archuleta / Taylor Hill [1]
"Dolly Parton is a bundle of joy, a creative genius, and a collaborative treasure."
Watch This!
Pop Quiz
The Cast of I Know What You Did Last Summer Play a Scary Game of Would You Rather
The legendary dance instructor specifically attested to Parton's open-minded attitude when it came to working on the music [3]. Although the "9 to 5" songstress is the main creative behind all 14 songs in the movie, she worked with Allen on fine-tuning certain tracks to better fit each scene. "Jenifer Lewis sings a song, 'Queen of Mean,' that needed to become more of a blues song — it didn't need to be a country, Western song," Allen said. "It needed to be what Jenifer would do, and so [Parton] loved that, and we did it. And we needed some new music for the portrayal of Regina Fuller as a young woman, so [Parton] happily wrote it and let it turn into a big dance moment."
View this post on Instagram[4]
Allen's commendation of Parton went beyond the screen as well. The director was recently moved by Parton's contributions to Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine [6]. On Nov. 16, the biotechnology company announced that its vaccination proved to be 94.5 percent effective [7] during its third phase of testing. It could become available to high-risk individuals as early as December and to the general public by spring 2021.
The news came seven months after Parton revealed that she donated $1 million to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center [8], where Moderna performed research and trials. The preliminary report published in The New England Journal of Medicine cited the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund as one of the sponsors [9]. "It's no surprise to any of us that she contributed a million dollars to a company that is close to bringing a vaccine to the world," Allen said. "It's not a surprise. That's her generosity. That's who she is."