Ice Cube has experienced plenty of success in the world of film, and in a new interview, he revealed that he turned down a role that eventually went to 2Pac.
Stopping by Big Boy’s Neighborhood for an interview touching on everything from the Big 3 League to his movie career, Ice Cube revealed that he turned down the opportunity to portray Larry “Lucky” Knight in 1993’s Poetic Justice, directed by John Singleton.
“I turned down the 2Pac role in Poetic Justice,” said Cube at the 48:55 point of the interview, confirming he turned down the 1993 romantic drama starring 2Pac and Janet Jackson. “[Director John Singleton] hit me up, he was gonna give me pay, too.” For a while, Singleton didn’t let Cube see the script, and when he was eventually able to read it, he had one issue with it. “He didn’t wanna change it, so I didn’t wanna do it,” he said. “The problem was, me playing 2Pac, I don’t think I’d kick my homeboy out the car for a girl I just met when we got to Oakland. I didn’t think that was cool. Iit kinda made the character a sucker to me.”
He admitted that he was “tempted” to do the film anyway because of Janet Jackson’s involvement, but at the time he “wanted to love the movies” he was in. “I’m glad 2Pac did it, I think he killed it,” he continued, before detailing another film he passed on. “I was asked to come in and talk about O-Dog, about being O-Dog in Menace [II Society],” he said. “But I didn’t want to be typecast.” Like 2Pac in Poetic Justice, he thinks Larenz Tate did a great job at bringing the character of Kevin “O-Dog” Anderson to life.
Elsewhere in the chat, he spoke about how late director John Singleton helped him with his first film, and revealed one of his biggest regrets as an actor. “You know, I’m not a fan of… Uh, what’s that dumb movie I did with Woody Harrelson,” he said around the 43:00 mark, before later clarifying it was 2011’s Rampart. “It didn’t come nothing like the script, or nothing like the director said it would. It’s like the director fell in love with Woody Harrelson and made the bad guy the good guy.” Big Boy chimed in to add, “I don’t even remember that movie,” to which Cube replied, “Good.”
Watch the full interview above.
