10 Roles We Wish Tupac Could Have Played

By Abe Beame

Tupac Shakur would have turned 44 today.

When we mourn the loss of his talent, we’re often referring to his rap career. But while Biggie’s entire catalogue amounts to three months of Young Thug mixtapes, Pac is still releasing new music nearly twenty years later.

Point being, his ability as a rapper was very much realized and explored. But as an actor, he was still a neophyte. Pac began honing his craft at the 127th Street Repertory Ensemble in Harlem when he was just twelve. His study continued in high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts. When he was just a background dancer in Digital Underground, Pac won the iconic role of Bishop in Ernest Dickerson’s Juice.

It’s probably the best of the early '90s lost generation hip-hop flicks, primarily because of Pac’s performance. He hijacks what appears to be a conventional woe-in-the-hood narrative and turns it into a mesmerizing character study of a ghetto sociopath. Pac owns every second he’s onscreen in a film with actors far more established than he was at the time. It should’ve been the beginning of a brilliant career.

But Juice was shot in 1991, right around the time 2pacalypse Now was released. From that point on, rap would take first billing too often in the five years Pac had left. He played another celebrated bad guy as Birdie in Above the Rim, made a few cash grab action flicks, made a romantic something with Janet Jackson in John Singleton’s Poetic Justice, which, you know, can’t win 'em all, and that was it.

But regardless of material, Pac was the best thing in every movie he appeared in. He had that unteachable thing a select few are born with, presence. He was dynamic, best suited for playing bad guys, but injected a warmth and intelligence in his roles that made you root for him. He’d only scratched the surface of his potential by September 13th, 1996. It’s easy to imagine how things could’ve played out, so that’s what we’ve done, assembling a list of roles from obvious to surprising that Pac could’ve filled if he’d stuck around. I like to think Tupac will read this on a balcony overlooking the Atlantic, sipping a mojito and laughing as he works his way through his morning RSS feed. So Pac, here’s a brief list of what could’ve been. Rest In Cuba.

Will Smith infamously passed on Tarantino’s antebellum spaghetti Western to make After Earth. The obvious next choice would’ve been Tupac. Tarantino seems aware of this, bringing in Pac’s vocals during the climactic shootout. Pac’s brand of wounded defiance would be perfect for the film’s second act, as the former slave evolves into a confident killer bent on revenge.

In Top 5’s best scene, Chris Rock puts forward a scenario where Pac might have ended up in Tyler Perry’s stable of black actors as a go to “dark skinned boyfriend.” In this alternate reality, Idris Elba’s role in the very Perry-ish thriller No Good Deed would be a perfect fit.

Elba plays a charming psychopath, designed to get the audience aligned with Taraji P. Henson as the resilient survivor. It’s a part Pac would salivate reading, and dive into with malicious fervor.

Paid in Full is The Godfather for hustlers. It’s the true story of three friends riding the crest of the crack boom in Harlem in the late '80s. Of the many great things the film has to offer, the best is Cam’ron’s performance as Rico, or Alpo Martinez, the charismatic asshole who eventually brings on the downfall of an empire.

It would be hard to imagine anyone topping Cam’ron’s totally legit, once-in-a-lifetime performance, until you consider this: the film’s best scene (SPOILERS FOR A 13-YEAR-OLD MOVIE!), when Rico shoots Mitch and takes drugs off of him, is a frame-by-frame remake of the best scene in Juice (SPOILERS FOR A 23 YEAR OLD MOVIE!), when Bishop turns back after killing his friend Raheem in cold blood to run his pockets. With Bishop, Pac invented the funny/scary/insane gangster, so he could take on Rico with ease.

Some reader is probably at home right now skimming through this and thinking to himself, “But Jeremy Renner is white!” Totally bro, because how could Pac play a nihilistic soldier with an adrenaline addiction? Most people aren’t aware of this, but if you play Katherine Bigelow’s Oscar winner with the sound off, it syncs up with Me Against the World.

Depending on what coast you grew up on, you may perceive Pac either as an Othello or an Iago, but New Yorkers and Angelinos alike can agree his life was a Shakespearean tragedy, one particularly well-suited to the Bard’s play about a star-crossed Moorish Captain.

This movie is a piece of shit, part of a wave in which Hollywood producers thought they could re-write Shakespeare for high school and wait in their driveway for a dump truck full of money to roll in. Even the reliably great Mekhi Phifer lays an egg here, but it’s the sort of thing Pac would’ve wandered into, as if from another movie, made a few weird choices in line delivery and reaction, and transformed it into a cult favorite.

A few years ago when recasting Spiderman, there was an internet push for Donald Glover to don the spandex. This summer, Michael B. Jordan will become Johnny Storm. Everyone wants to see Idris Elba as the next Bond.

But where’s the love for a new-look black super villain? If you had to choose, why not go with a guy who already kind of was one? Anyone who has listened to “Hit 'Em Up” knows Pac would make an ideal Gotham antagonist. If any rapper wanted to see the world burn, it was Tupac. Or, you know, Jared Leto.

John Singleton wrote his better-than-you-remember Baby Boy for Pac. When Tupac died, he cast Tyrese, so why not return the favor?

In the Fast & Furious franchise, Roman Pearce is often the very necessary comic relief, punctuating Vin Diesel’s guttural mumblings about family with quick trigger jokes at the expense of Ludacris and The Rock. Pac would bring a touch of depth and soul to the one-note part.

Many believe Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t win an Oscar for Best Actor because his portrayal of this douche bag was too gleeful and over the top. Pac had the rare ability to look miserable with a wide smile. Surrounded by women and piles of money, his laugh could sound like a scream for help.

Without pandering, his Jordan Belfort would show the pain at the bottom of that pit of money, hookers and drugs. And for anyone curious whether or not he could handle the over-the-top bacchanals in Scorsese’s three-hour opus, I’d direct you to the “2 of Americaz Most Wanted” video. This also opens up all sorts of possibilities for Donnie Azoff. Daz or Kurupt?

Wow, do we have to choose just one character from The Wire? How about Pac as the militant, family-oriented Avon Barksdale? Pac as the ruthless bad seed Marlowe Stanfield? Pac as the hard-drinking rogue detective Jimmy McNulty? The possibilities are endless. But of course, the answer is Omar Little.

Omar was the show’s iconic role, a modern day ronin respecting no code but his own, robbing drug dealers and leveraging the cops. Oh, he was also gay. Pac excelled at vulnerable rage, aggression covering a mortal wound. This tension is at the heart of Michael K. Williams’ character.