Exclusive: O’Shea Jackson Jr. Talks “Straight Outta Compton”Posted by Wilson Morales
August 10, 2015
Coming out this week is the highly anticipated film, “Straight Outta Compton,” which tells the astonishing story of how five young men known as N.W.A. revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war.
Directed by F. Gary Gray, the film stars O’Shea Jackson Jr. as Ice Cube, Jason Mitchell as Easy-E, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, Neil Brown Jr. as DJ Yella and Aldis Hodge as MC Ren.
If O’Shea Jackson Jr. look may familiar, it’s because he’s the spitting image of his dad Ice Cube. He’s the one person of the cast who knows more of his dad than anyone. While he may have his dad get him an audition, the 24 year-old spent nearly two years working on the craft to make sure his dad would be proud of his performance. Make no mistake, this kid can act and has a future in the business if he wants it.
In speak with Blackfilm.com exclusively, O’Shea spoke about getting the role, working with Gary and establishing a great chemistry with Jason Mitchell and Corey Hawkins.
How did you get involved with this film about your dad and the group?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: My father presented the idea to me before there was a script. He told me he wanted me to play him. At first when I heard Universal and that’s a big fish trying to get into the boat, especially where I’ve no experience with acting. But my father and Gary got me the right coach. They got me the right people behind me and I auditioned for the role for over two years. I kept coming back and working with Gary and callbacks and with every audition I was pumping into their heads. They are not to get anyone more passionate about this role than me.
There are not going to get anyone who knows the ins and outs like I do. I just kept trying to pump that into the suits and in their heads. There were times where I didn’t think I would get it. I thought they wanted to choose someone else and that would have killed me. That would have really embarrassed me. When I finally got it, my father called me and he sounded like he was preparing me for bad news and then I finally got face to face with him, he said, “You got it!” It’s just a weight off my shoulders but at that same time I couldn’t fully exhale because we’re about to get to work.
Growing up with a father who’s an actor and producer, was acting something you wanted to do?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: I knew I wanted to do something with movies. When I was 15 I started to look into different movies. Not necessarily for my demographic, just like movies like The Big Lebowski, a lot of the Coen Bros. movies, a lot of Wes Anderson, and I started to get a love for cinema and what it does to people with witty dialogue. When I was 18 and after I graduated from Taft, the same high school as my father, I went to USC for screenwriting. I’ve always had this love for movies and he presented this to me and I felt like I knew what goes into a good movie, so why shy from it.
After meeting the other guys in film such as Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell, how long did it before you knew their was a strong bond between all of you?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: Well, after all the auditioning, it led to a chemistry test and there’s three Cubes, and three Dres, and Universal is about to pick who they want. They have the finalists here. The first day I met Jason Mitchell and Corey Hawkins, when we got in the room, we clicked. When we were doing our scenes, you could feel it. We could see ourselves on set. There was a time when we told the director, “You’re not going to get hotter than these three right here. This is it.” Gary, after a while, when they had another Cube auditioned, told me that Jason and Corey would dumb down their acting. We all felt it. From day one, we exchanged numbers and we’ve still been talking. During pre-production, we brought Neil Brown, who plays Yella and we brought in Aldis Hodge, who plays Ren, and they jumped in right into the circle. They are still in the group chatting on the phone and I’ll never let them go.
What was the best scene you shot?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: The Skateland scene and performing “Dopeman.” I’ve performed with my father for six years now. When we’re on stage, that’s when I’m in my element and with we did it by the script after a while, but then Gary let me quarterback one. He let me map it out and do what we have to do. It actually made the movie. That’s the scene that you see. That really made me feel like we know what we are doing. The crowd was so on fire. The electricity on set is when I felt we were on to something special. I didn’t see the cameras, I didn’t see the boom, and I couldn’t hear none of it.
Now that you have completed this film, are you planning to stay in this business?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: I put in so much work. I put in so many nights of pulling my hair out, studying film and other actors’ performances that I put too much in it that I can’t leave after one. You don’t go through training camp to go through one season. I’m definitely trying to make a long career in cinema because I love films and I want to be a part of them in any way I can, whether it’s screenwriting or acting. I might have to call Gary and teach me some directing techniques. I definitely want to be in cinema.
If you weren’t your father’s son, would you be a fan of N.W.A.?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: Yeah. First off, you can not be a fan of those beats. N.W.A. is knocking to this day and they speak their mind and their truth. Any fan of rap and any fan of hip-hop gotta love N.W.A.
If you were going on a island and you needed just five albums, would ‘Straight Outta Compton’ be one of them?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: Yeah! But they did a 20th Anniversary Remastered One so I would bring that one.
Would this be one of your top five albums?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: “Straight Outta Compton” is there. A lot of people like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” but I’m a fan of “Off The Wall,” so that’s has to come if it doesn’t have to be all rap. “The Best of the Beatles” has to be there. I would say the last two would probably be “The Chronic” by Dr. Dre and “Death Certificate” by my dad.
What’s also in the film but not talked about is your mom, who’s in the film and played by Alexandra Shipp. What did your parents teach you to be the guy you are now?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: My confidence. My parents want me to be confident in anything that I do. They always picked up my confidence in anything. My mother would tell me that girls only look for confidence in guys. “It doesn’t matter how you look but you have be confident in what you’re doing. If you don’t have confidence, it’s not going to show,” is what she would say. My father was my basketball coach and he would say that you have to be confident in the moves that you make. They told that to all my siblings so that we would never have doubt within ourselves. Doubt within yourself can lead to clouded judgement. It can lead to you not taking opportunities. If you forever live in “what if” or “you should have,” you’re going to live your life in regret.
With the violence that continues to occurs to the Black community by law enforcement, can you understand what your father went through as we seen in the film?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: When it came to raising us, he’s building characters in us. He always let us know the harsh realities of the world. If you don’t know the rules when you step out into the world, then you will lose the game. He’s always kept me aware and it doesn’t matter what city you’re in. If you’re a young black man, then you’ve dealt with the police in some kind of matter. There was a situation where my brother was dropping me at Six Flags and coming out of the Wendy’s drive-thru and we get pulled over. The cops says he smells weed in the car. I’m 15 years old and there’s nothing going on in this car. A second cop car comes up and they handcuffed us both and put us in separate cars and start questioning us. With that level of harassment, I haven’t met anyone young and black that hasn’t had to deal with it in some time. That’s why N.W.A affected so many people. They were just making music for their neighborhood, but what’s going on in their neighborhood is happening in Philly, Brooklyn, Miami and Des Moines, Iowa and everywhere and everyone can relate to it.
Are you into social media? I see you haven’t tweeted in three years.
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: I haven’t been on twitter since I was 20. Twitter can be distracting. When you’re always on the social media sites, you can get out of the loop of reality. I didn’t want to be on twitter unless I had a reason to be. I stepped back from it years ago. I just put up an instagram not too long ago. Those can be distracting at times, but I will using them to promote the film and people need to reach me somehow. I’m taking advantage of Periscope and other mediums.
Are you ready for the attention that will come after folks have seen the film?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: Yes. I’ve been watching father do it. He compare me to Steph Curry. Steph watched his father in the NBA as he grew up and the same goes with Kobe Bryant, who watched his dad go through the basketball process. I’m second generation of it. I feel that I handled myself better than most rookies would.
Why should folks see “Straight Outta Compton”?
O’Shea Jackson Jr.: You should go see “Straight Outta Compton” because of the message that it relays. There are so many metaphors and so many things within the movie that it can’t be placed under one genre. This film will make you laugh, make you cry and make you think. It’s not a movie about rap or about police brutality. It’s a movie of brotherhood and rising against oppression. It’s about encouraging others to be confident and speaking up. This is how five great mind thinking alike can change the world no matter if your city is on the map or not. It’s about ambition, drive and creativity leading to change.
