Despite his best efforts, Anthony Mackie (“Half Nelson”) failed to convince producers of “Notorious,” the biopic of slain rapper The Notoroious B.I.G, to give his character Tupac Shakur a rap in the film.
“No. I wish,” Mackie sighed to MTV about not getting to perform a Pac rhyme in the movie. “I tried to get them to put a rap in there, but they wouldn’t do it.”
About his performance, Mackie said. “A lot of the stuff you see in [Notorious] is just Pac being Pac. You see a lot of the charismatic, energetic person he was. He was the life of the party without trying. A lot of the guys now are just trying to be the life of the party.”
Meanwhile, Derek Luke (“Miracle At St. Anna”) who plays Puff Daddy/P Diddy said he has massive respect for the vlog-enthusiast/ hip-hop mogul.
“I think the brother is deep,” Luke said of Puff. “Most people know him as a flamboyant giant and mouthpiece. But he was a guy with a dream and a vision, who helped transform a language for America, which is hip-hop.”
“Notorious” is still scheduled for January 2009.