Dolly Parton on Trusting Her Gut in Brand Deals: “I Don’t Want to Be in Business With a Bunch of Weirdos”

The Dolly Parton empire has a new entry. The country music legend and cultural icon has partnered with Duncan Hines on a new line of Southern-inspired treats. To talk up the collaboration, Parton, 76, spent some time with The Hollywood Reporter on Zoom to discuss her approach to brand deals, whether or not she follows recipes in the kitchen and what it was like to collaborate with best-selling author James Patterson on their forthcoming novel, Run, Rose, Run.

Courtesy of Duncan Hines

More from The Hollywood Reporter

• Dolly Parton, Kelsea Ballerini to Headline Audiobook Production of 'Run, Rose, Run' (Exclusive)

• Dolly Parton Reflects on Helping Fund COVID Vaccine: "I Knew Something Bad Was on the Rise"

• Alex Rodriguez, Bron Among Investors in New Social Commerce Company NOWwith

What is a day in the kitchen with Dolly like?

Well, that depends on the day. I can whip up anything good if I’m in a hurry but if it’s a Sunday and there’s family coming, I plan it out, of course, like everybody does, a couple of days before. And then on the actual day, I like to cook all day because it really does take a day to cook a great meal, especially if you’re doing a roast. I love to make a really good pork roast, and then you’ve got to make all your gravies and vegetables and all of that. And then maybe rolls or cornbread, or both. It’s time-consuming, and any cook will tell you that, especially if you’re going to make a big deal out of it. Then, there’s dessert. So, it’s an all-day deal to have a really great meal. I get up early to start mine.

How early? Are you a very early riser?

I am. I’m up around 3 o’clock every day. Sometimes, if you’re doing something special, you would get up early just to start doing that. But a good cook knows what they’re doing and how much time it will take. It’s time-consuming.

What do you do when you get up at 3 a.m.? That’s so early!

Well, I’ve always been an early riser. Sometimes I go to bed real early but even when I don’t, I’m usually up early because I love my mornings. I love it when everything is quiet and all the energy around me, or in the world, is calm. I feel that I have better communication with God in the mornings. I do my best thinking, planning, praying and getting ready for the day at that time. It’s just a really good time. And once I’ve done my reading, meditation or whatever, it’s a good time to start cooking.

I’ll cook a big breakfast for myself and my husband — gravy, biscuits and all that. Can’t eat like that all the time now because I’m a country girl, and I’d be broad as this table here and have been. You’ve got to watch it, but I’ll never give up my rich, high-calorie foods because you got to cook with butter, bacon grease and a few things like that. It scares other people to death, but it don’t scare me. I’d rather die happy than be stressed about staying on a strict diet forever.

Let’s talk about the Southern recipes. I’m sure you had plenty to pick from, so how did you settle on coconut and banana?

Well, these are our first start, and I’m sure there’ll be others coming along. Nothing’s better than Southern [recipes] and certainly, nobody ever made a better banana pudding than my own mother. I can make a really good banana pudding myself. We thought it would be great to have something that would last a little longer and be easier to make, so we started with a banana pudding cake. It tastes like bananas and, of course, you can decorate it all up with your bananas and wafers and any extra little stuff that you want. But it’s good just like it is. We have these wonderful frostings that we love. And, of course, everybody in the South has a coconut cake on Sundays, on Easter or any special occasion. They’re fun and easy to make, and they always seem special. These two felt like the best to launch our partnership.

Are you a strict recipe follower, or do you eyeball it?

As a rule, I’ve never followed a recipe in my life. I’m a good Southern cook, and people in the mountains, and in the South in general, don’t follow recipes. Of course, for certain things like old family recipes, you’ve got to make sure you get it right, so you might have to with those. You learn through generations the way that different people cook, and you add your little extra special touches yourself, which I do. But it’s very rare that I ever use a recipe of any kind because I’ve seen it enough, know it enough and I have a natural flair for good-tasting food.

I’m a better cook than I am a baker, but I can certainly make a cake and a good pan of cornbread and biscuits. That’s what’s great about Duncan Hines, though, you don’t have to be great about baking stuff to make something great with these mixes. Some in my family can do all the artwork and details on birthday cakes, but I could never do that. I’d make the biggest mess you’ve ever seen. But I can make you a good Southern meal and a great cake to go with it.

The boxes and the branding are very Dolly. What’s the creative process like for a project like this, and how many notes do you give to make sure it reflects you?

When you start a project of any kind, you have different mock-ups or pictures they want to use. You know when it’s the right one. I do love the boxes and the picture, too, because it’s that iconic picture that they use a lot of me. It’s on T-shirts, perfumes, all of that. But they exaggerated it and added some colors. I love the pink because it’s so girly and so me. The colors remind me of the album I did, Backwoods Barbie. I just love Duncan Hines, and I’ve been cooking with them for years. I can cook about anything from scratch, but why would you when you’ve got all these great recipes ready to go? All you have to do is read the directions and you’ve got these great cakes.

Congratulations on the James Patterson collaboration with the novel, Run, Rose, Run. You’re also doing something that I’ve never heard of by releasing a companion album to a novel. It seems the obvious next step would be a film or a TV show. Is that a possibility?

I think Run, Rose, Run will definitely be a movie at some point and if the movie does good, it would also make a great series, like The Fugitive, or one of those where the characters are running from something until the end. Right now, we’ve got the book and the album coming out in March. They’re going to be working my little country butt off to try and get all of this stuff promoted. I’m going to need some cake for my energy. But yeah, we’re going to make a movie of it.

We’re already in talks with some writers to get that in the works, so [hopefully] in a couple of years we’ll have a movie. And there’s a character in there that I’m going to get to play, so it’ll be a good movie for me. Hopefully, we’ll use some of those songs for a movie as well, or I might write a few new ones for that. I’m excited about it. That was one of the best ways I could work with [Patterson] and contribute.

I’m not the kind of person who will just put my name on something and not really be involved in doing the work. He would send me pages and I would read them, then write songs based on the characters and situations they were in. Every few weeks we’d get together and kind of combine our parts, and it worked out really great. We didn’t mean for it to happen that way, it was never in the deal, but after we started writing it, I thought, well, I’m involved in this, and I’m not doing enough. I’ve got to stay in this book with these characters, so that’s how it worked out for us, and it was great.

A lot of artists lately have been selling their catalogs, people like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks. A few years ago, your were considering it. Where do you stand on that today?

After a certain amount of time with all those songs, you can make a good amount of money. If you’re like me and you’ve got a big family, sometimes you think, well, I might sell. Of course, you still get writing royalties and credits and all of that, and you can reinvest that in other things or start another publishing company. If you sell, the company that purchases it doesn’t get the new stuff that you may produce. They wouldn’t in my deal. I would start again and have another publishing company and let that grow and build. That would probably take me on out because this one I’ve had all my life. But you’ve got to think of it as a business deal. So far, I’ve been more inclined to say no, but when they talk about that kind of money, I think about my estate, my family and all that I want to leave for them. That’s why you work. You want to build a legacy, and you work to have money to leave for all the people that you love.

I’m sure you get approached all the time for brand deals. What’s the weirdest or wildest one that you declined?

Oh, I get offers every day. I’ll only take offers from people I trust for things I believe in or things I’ve used myself, something I can sell with conviction. I really mean it when I say this is a good cake. But sometimes you just get offers for things you don’t even understand, like some new thing that’s to invest money in or something. I’m not willing to take chances on a lot of stuff like that. I have to like the people. I have to feel like they’re good people. I don’t want to be in business with a bunch of weirdos. I don’t want to have to deal with freaky stuff or weird stuff. I just know it in my gut. I have a feeling that tells me if something’s right or wrong. I don’t care how much money is attached to it.

What did you learn about yourself during the pandemic?

I knew I was a workaholic, and I still do. That was proven again to me because I thought, “Well, I can’t sit on my ass through this whole thing.” I’ve got to do stuff. I’ve got to read books to kids at night. I’ve got to write songs about the situation that we’re in. I did it all very carefully and all that. I stayed busy. I wrote a ton of songs, I wrote albums. I continued working. I didn’t want to let it keep me down. I did do a lot of cooking, too, because there were a lot of times I was in the house and couldn’t go a lot of places. I did a lot of eating, as we all did, and made a lot of Duncan Hines cakes.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Courtesy of Duncan Hines

Courtesy of Duncan Hines

Click here to read the full article.