Gridlock’d Interview

Female Interviewer: That part to what drew you to this script into Spoon? or? 2Pac: Well in a way because I felt, upon my release I felt like I wanted to be seen as a completely human being, I'm through, like mimicking characters for people so that they can get a better understanding on what young black males are about. I wanna mimic a whole character so that I can get a better understanding on what man and human beings are about. So now, it's like I don't care about making people understand how we are, that's what I used to do, every part was just about digging deeper into who young black males are, and I feel like I was actor I can do that, I'm interested in that. And "Spoon" is my first vengeance break it off into that new philosophy, as far as at being not all sad, not violent, not all serious, it's funny. To somebody who just hear that I'm heroin junky, they'll think "oh it's just the same thing", but that's part of love that I'll give when I see them see the movie, and they'll go "oh", it's just a heroin addict like you've never seen. Female Interviewer: He has so much. Well it's really gotta lot of realism in it, because it mean in real life, you're in horrible situations, made funny happens, and it's too funny. 2Pac: Yeah, yes!, and that's what I like and we're like, we always joke mean tender, it's actual reaction stars now we're runnin' the stuff. And if you look at us, we look like the two most unlikely action stars in the world, so he's like, we always joke like "we're the new Danny Glover and Mel Gibson", I'm the Mel Gibson, he's the Danny Glover, and that's part of the whole thing now. It's fun for us to do this 'cause he's not used to this and I'm not used to this. Well he's like an actor's actor so he's done every part, Tennis played, the ice cream cone— [Laughs] But I have to play lot of different parts, so it's fun to when I do "do this" to do with him, it makes me feel comfortable. And I can take his criticisms and his praises more seriously knowin' that he knows what he's talkin' about, 'cause usually I want to give credit to him, that actor like. What does he know! But him I can respect. Female Interviewer: Let's just talk about Spoon for a while 'cause he's such an interesting character. And I guess you know, tell us like a little bit of his adventure that he goes on? 2Pac: Spoon, he is a man who hasn't found that peace yet, you know how they say "you born and you go through things and then you go to this big catharsis and you change". Well he's going though things, he hasn't yet found the door to change. So he's like, in his mid 20's going through his late 20's and still hasn't done anything with his life, except get high and being into this music thing. And he's always been like "a take I took I got" take things from this person take things from that person, but with Stretch;he's givin', it's like I'm his guardian and I think that Spoon is scared to move away or walk away from Stretch because he'll not know how empty his life truly is, and how he's really nowhere. So to me is that's good because it talks about the need for friendship and it talks about the bond that our friendship is about, not only me and Stretch, but Stretch and I and Cookie you know what I mean, the bond that we all share, so that's what I think it's deep about that ship. Female Interviewer: Oh, [?] isn't it? When you start Spoon is the one that decides that you guys should quit. 2Pac: Yeah, no doubt. Female Interviewer: And you keep play pulling and stretches sorry —[Laughs], back to load and get into trouble. 2Pac: he represents euthanasia you know to die slowly, to die painlessly you know what I mean?; that's his character it's 'euthanasia' and my character is reality because I don't wanna die. So when it comes to that point when we get to the door we either die, you know we gotta take that big chance, Stretch has no problem taking that chance because he feels as though he's already dying. So is to die slow, is to die painlessly, whatever fun we can have on the way is what he wants to do, whereas with me it's like I don't wanna die. So I'm constantly getting us out of this drama that he puts us in. Female Interviewer: [?] it's a long, it's a long he learn that in acting class, they pass on seniors [Interviewers laughs] Female Interviewer: I know you've done some acting with [?] like 3 or 4 movies, wasn't it a sign that he always interested you? or was it like natural [?] that took performing? 2Pac: I believe.. Female Interviewer: This rap is like more performing some music. 2Pac: But when it truly it is I've always been an actor, and rap music, the reason I been successful in rap game I think is that I treat my albums like movies, and I treat writing it like I'm a character writing a story, you know for each album whatever I'm going through whatever stage is I'm going through, and I do it vividly with vivid pictures with action and description and the beginning, middle and when it end and conflict and redemption, you know things like that. So I feel like I've always been an actor and acting is my first love I went to school to perform an arts I studied I wanted to be an actor, but due to the poverty and the natural circumstances that stopped me I'm being poor, homeless and all of that I never got a chance to leisurely study acting with great teachers and you know fine into my craft. What I did do though was throw myself into these streets and learn as many experiences as I could, so now that I have opportunity to relax, exhale and actually work on the craft, I have so many things to draw from and it makes it where I'm comfortable now with this. Where I wasn't doing those other movies,it was just like a hobby. Now I'm an actor and I don't want anybody to take that from me and say "you're rapper who's acting because you would hardly pay me this and you would hardly get the scenes that you getting if I was a rapper just actin", you know what I mean?, for the check. So I'm an actor I just happened to rap on my spare time instead of being a waiter. Female Interviewer: Do you think part of the reason you think so, incredibly successful as a rap artist, also that you create like your songs create a complete character that you can put out there? 2Pac: Yeah, I think that, with my music is like watchin' somebody going through things, my whole career, and I feel like if James Deen was a rapper it'd be me you know what I mean?, or if Marilyn Monroe was a rapper it'd me at the person who you can just watch going through crazy drama and just you know you could either cry, laugh, cheer or whatever, but it's not happen to you, it's happen to them, and I tell you vividly 'cause I don't that you're not supposed to tell people everything that happens in your life. So I just tell 'em, and that's what I think has made me successful of anything. Female Interviewer: And now has it become kind of like larger, you know Vondie was stalking being with you on the set and bringing the papers of your [?] 2Pac:Yeah, and I'll be there, Yeah it is that. I guess that's what frustrating and aggravating that I can't live down this big shadow that I made to protect myself, 'cause it started out just being I need to get it all to ego to keep people away from me and protect myself which everybody does. You know like when somebody breaks into your house and you know he's in the house you wouldn't go in your real voice "Excuse me, are you breaking into my house", you would go "HEY WHAT YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE!!" it's the same thing that I do you know what I mean?. If you out in the wilderness and I'm just one cheap by myself I won't go "I wanna say my next song, it's called uh..", I would go "OHHH, FUCK THE WORLD" you know what I mean?, and that's worked and not that it's like a total facade, it's me but just blown up and what the media does is if you have ever wanna see anger, just hit the best actor in the world and you show it to your soul, so that's what they do they make me like I'm just any guy in America, when I'm an actor who is just playing his part so well that I look very angry, you know not I'm such a great actor, but anger is easy everybody gets mad, everybody is frustrated, everybody is fed up, so is not very hard part to play you know. Female Interviewer: Now you created like something that was too good, 'cause now we're careful 2Pac: not unusually, I mean I made Bob Dole and Delores Tucker into household names you know, along with somebody other rappers, and I made a lot of people, I made politicians you know figure it out what it is they do for living, you know what I mean?, and that's good in way but it's bad in a lot of other ways, we always wanted to spark debate, we always wanted to be noticed but never want it to be this way. Where now all we been shone about it, all this time is better laws and more respect, and all the shine all this is doing now is getting law changed so that we can't shoun about it no more, and we get less respect anyway. So it's frustrating to see this demon that not only the media has created but I take care of responsibility for helping to create that, but it's just like any full blooded all American guy when you in high school you at the party animal then you wanna grow up, but what if you was in high school all your life and nobody wanted to see you go from the party animal to a student or a scholar. you know, it just too much fun, 'cause what it is they don't have party animal who is just as good as I am who is just articulate and fun to watch and charismatic you know what I mean?, that's what they actually saying, that's how they actually see us, it's not me jocking myself but that's how they feel, it's like "Oh he is the best velly" 'cause at least we can hear what it is we don't like, he sayin' it clear, but if you thought about it; I'm hardly the villain, I'm hardly the one you should be scared of, it's the guy that can't talk, it's the guy without a job, it's the one with a scar on his face, not the one clean cat, you know what I mean?, you should be worried about a lot of other things but not me. Female Interviewer: It’s interesting 'cause you kind of have Spoon as kind of artistically a way out for you and Spoon is looking for… 2Pac: No doubt, he is a way to help my image and I am a way for him to um, my life has been…has made it easy for me to jump into Spoon. Because all I have to do is think where will I be if I stayed on those paths, and I will be Spoon. Because he is articulate, talented, he’s just a junkie. So where would I be at had I took these chances, hadn’t I gone all out, hadn’t I done the things that made to a milestone, medialized, I would be Spoon. I would still be a very talented human being no one knew about, that no one interviews, that no one gave movie parts to. So whatever I do good or bad, has got me out of where I was, got me out of the jaws of death. So now that I’m out of the jaws of death, I don’t mind all the foggy breaths and the people who don’t like what I said to get out of there. I’m just happy I’m not there anymore. And what I say is like, it’s like when you see…it’s kind of hypocritical because people love to have mercy and sympathy for everything, from the animals to whales to ferrets to everything except us; your youth, the ones who you have given no attention to, who become adults with no compassion. I feel like if you walk by a street and you was walking on the concrete and you saw rose growing out a concrete, even if it had messed up pedals, and it was a little to the side, you would marvel at just seeing a rose grow through concrete. So why is it when you see some ghetto kid grow out of all the dirtiest circumstances, and he could talk, he could sit across from you, make you smile, make you cry, make you laugh, all you could talk about is my dirty rose, my dirty stems, and how I’m leaning crooked to the side, you can’t even see that I came out of that shit. And that’s exactly the analogy it is to me. Female Interviewer: That is good, um I just want to get back to the movie interview for a moment though, 2Pac: Yeah a movie, we’re doing one. [Laughs] Interviewer: or your next song…. 2Pac: —[Laughs] Nah. Female Interviewer: That’s good. What about working with Vondie, have you known him before… 2Pac: I hadn’t saw him before, I hadn’t saw the things he did. Once I met him, I was open to work with him. He wasn’t tripping off me and I wasn’t tripping off him, there was no ego thing, it was just good to work with somebody, get direction from somebody who didn’t bring baggage along. I felt like he never knew what was going on. Like when I was telling him, ‘yeah I gotta go to court’ and he’s like ‘huh?,’ ‘Yeah I gotta do these’, ’huh?’. He didn’t know what was going on. This is like yeah just be at work, so I like that it made it comfortable for me. It took a lot of pressure from me. Instead of usually when I meet directors that are like ‘uhhh….Hi.’ [Laughs] Female Interviewer: We talked a little bit about it but can you talk a little bit more about your relationship with Tim Roth and what its like working with him. 2Pac: it’s fun, I always joke like I’m training him but really he’s teaching me. You know, not teaching me as far as ‘listen, watch this’ but teaching me as far as watching him. It gives me confidence to do what I’m doing. Because at first I was intimidated like you know, here is this guy trained and learned and he’s who they think as one of the best actors who I also think that. But I mean, as far as equally across the board, everybody loves him. Everybody thinks he has talent and didn’t study that way. I didn’t study at all really, you don’t count high school, so I look at it as being like…when he tells me like you know, oh yeah I fell at you. Then I know that even though I didn’t study like he studied, I’m getting the same result, gives me confidence. I could work with anybody now and I wouldn’t be you know, like ‘what do you think,’ we totally comfortable because that was the last puzzle. I know I’m good to my people, I know I’m good to my folks, all of my peers love me, my generation. But if you can say ‘you’re on the right track, as long as you can do this,’ His thing is like methodical, by the book. It's like he gets there by sudden path and mine is like just close your eyes and when its time to turn the camera on, put yourself in that position, You know the character and do what he would do like fresh. So It’s the opposite but it’s fun, it's like riveting to be there. And while he’s doing his and I’m doing mine, if we get the scene right, I know that we’re in the right track. It makes me comfortable, it gives me confidence. Female Interviewer: Are you excited for all your fans to see you? 2Pac: Yeah, I’m excited for both of our fans, I’m excited for the movie theatre always, I’m excited for the sight that it'll be in that theatre when people come to see my movie is coming and people come to see Tim’s movie coming, Vondie's verse coming, Thandie’s fans coming, people who wanna hear the soundtrack coming, they all be in the theatre like ‘did you see who’s back there,’ it's gon' be that type of a theatre. All over America. That’s what I’m happy about. I bet you there is more comedy in the theatre then there is on the screen. Just as long as different types of people being in what spot together and that’s what’s teal good, that’s what movie making is about. Because acting really is not saving the world, we just making them feel good while we all go through the motions so that’s whats dope is that we can all put us all in that one spot. Especially in this time in history where we are in America, in a country, in a world, it be all good to get us in there on some happy shit. No murders, no racism, just happy shit. Female Interviewer: yeah and I mean I’m sure some people who are gonna go like ‘oh it’s like a black guy and a white guy that are friends ‘ and that has nothing to do with it. 2Pac: It’s never like that, and people are gonna trip because Tim is saying nigga and I’m calling him white boy. What we try to do is like take the alcohol off the room. Once somebody keep hitting the room like this thirty times. Somebody could be saying nigga in the theatre and they gon' laugh at it because we just turned it into a comedy. We just turned it into this innocent white boy who thinks that saying nigga will get him accepted because he hears all the black guys say it and turn it into black guys just realizing what we say and how ‘white boy’ just as harmful as saying ‘honkey’ and all of that shit hurts them just as much as ‘nigga’ hurts us. You don’t even realize it so when you see the movie you will see how all of us just bounce the word off so casually in the streets that we don’t realize it. Female Interviewer: it’s also kinda cool that there are, on the surface they say oh two junkies that are whatever, whatever. But the interesting thing is two great guys who really like and they have so much humanity, that I think for audience goers who would be like oh why am I so worried about [?] or something… 2Pac: Right…. Female Interviewer: hey they just like two guys who can make it through the system. You gotta get your license at the DMB with like a little text…, 2Pac: We're like, junkies like how people have to have coffee every morning. That’s the type of junkies we are. How, you know someone likes chocolate or how like some women like being with guys who beat them up or…we have addictions. It’s not like junkies as far as we just like fucking our lives off excuse me. It’s more like we have addictions, we just go through these addictions, [Female Interview]: Well there is now point too where they just need to they’re not getting high, they’re just like staying level. 2Pac: Right, being numb annuitizing ourselves to the world. We all do that and everybody does that that’s why no one is gonna trip off the fact that we’re junkies they gon' just think we’re them. Female Interviewer: and you know well, I don’t know but I didn’t wanna ask this question though, do you even think democracy? Which these guys certainly having and you’re constantly doing some of the [?] acting scenes. 2Pac: I’m so in tune to this. I done so much research, I’ve done it so much involuntary research of the bureaucracy of the American government that I’m an expert and also a consultant of a film for it. So it’s like that. I know I have it, I know all the run arounds so I’m going to court now for some things that I did when I didn’t have any hair on my face. So know what I mean, that’s how it goes. Female Interviewer: what about the three characters Spoon, Stretch and Cookie, what’s the dynamic going on there. 2Pac: I think…I bet you Vondie didn’t think this but I think that it’s like a…it personifies our relationships. As far as human being out there right now, as far as like umm, that’s how we are now, like no one’s sexual preferences are outlined definitely anymore and relationships are not outlined definitely anymore. Marriages are not such a serious statement anymore. I’m sure Mr. Dole and Mrs. Tucker would like it to be that way but it isn’t. People are more like into just discovering and exploring relationships and seeing where it leads them instead of labeling them and then living that part, then more like just being together again and after 10 years you realize you’re living in a relationship with two girls and two guys you know what I mean. So it’s like that. We jumped inside this relationship that’s been going on for a while, and it’s me Spoon Loving Cookie and loving Stretch. Not sexually but as a friend, as a best friend. And it’s Stretch loving me as a best friend and loving Cookie sexually but not physically. It’s like that intense desire to be with them but because he loved her so much, as you see them in the movie he can’t be with her. There is something that will keep them apart. Female Interviewer: And you had a friend like Stretch who had that kind of like really open… 2Pac: Mm hmm, I had a friend named John Cole, who was blonde and his hair down to his shoulders, and had blue eyes and looked like America’s vision of the perfect guy, But he was all torn up inside because things that happened to his life and he was curious like Stretch and I was all torn up inside at the time that we met and we met and he had money and I didn’t. And he put me through high school, that’s how I got through the school of performing arts. He snuck me up to his house so his parents didn’t see us, spent the night there. We went to school, I dressed in his clothes because it was fun for him to not have, and it was fun for me to not have. It was fun for him to hear rap music blaring out the speakers and it was fun for me to show it to him. It was fun for me to hear Sting and to hear like that Beatles had put things at the end of their record and to know all of these like historic things about music that I never knew, that I would never have known had we not crossed paths that is really defined me as an artist today and the diversity that I can choose from today and what I would play in my car today and what would make me stand out is from that union. So Stretch is that, I know it, I know him. And it has nothing to do with black or white, it has to do with curiosity and just being mixed up. Having the cultures mixed up and watching what happens when it happens. That’s how it should be I think in this world. Everybody should get a partner, show him your hood, he shows you his hood, that’s your guardian. bet you, we have a lot less problems. Female Interviewer: What’s going on speaking in music? what you doing on right now? 2Pac: Well, I’m approaching the six million mark on my album; All Eyez On Me. I’m working on the soundtrack for this movie. Working on my next project, it’s a group call the Outlawz, it’s my little cousins little bad ass kids that I got in school and promised I put a project out for. After that I have a girl from London name Rachel who songs gon' be on the project who sings and I’ma produce her album and break the barrier on what Tupac can do. Started a production company working on some movies on my own. Just wanna push forward. Female Interviewer 2: [?] 2Pac: Well Deathrow is gonna do the soundtrack. We got Nate Dogg doing his beautiful song call "Never Leave Me Alone" singing with Snoop Dogg rapping on it. Snoop has given me a song call Street Life it's him rapping and I do guest appearances, it's the bomb. I got this reggae guy chanting on it. And then we got Chelle about time, straight out of London, I flew her out here. Got the song. We have Damon Wax doing a song, one of the producers. Everything but the girl. A lot of things, now it's like everything stuck on my own. We doing a lot of covers like old songs that are. Danny Boy is gonna do a "Change Is Gonna Come", Sick Feet is doing a song call "Consider Me", It's one of the best songs ever made, I'm glad to be a part of it. that I was talking about misogynist and all that. These guys are doing a song about a guy talking about you know, why do women always want the guys with money and the guys that are rude to them. Why don’t they want the pudgy guys that stays at home that will teach your kids how to play basketball stuff like that. So it’s a good soundtrack, it’s diverse, as diverse as the cast. Guaranteed to shake and we’re doing it like volume one and volume two. Volume one is the soundtrack for the movie, volume two is just all the atmosphere for the streets. It’s all like the rap and the r&b and the thugs and volume is like the mix of everything.