A rapper learns how to cry

Toronto —  To make himself a movie star and his life story a movie, the rapper 50 Cent had to revisit the day he was shot nine times by lying on freezing asphalt for three hours with a chest full of fake blood and bullet holes. For other scenes, he had to conjure up the walk and talk of his youth, when he was an orphaned kid living on a desperate boulevard in Queens, N.Y., where a beating or arrest could be around the corner. He even had to narrate the murder of his mother and the torching of her corpse.

None of that, though, was as hard as the day that the film’s acclaimed director, Jim Sheridan, told his young star that it was time to cry for the camera.

“I spend a majority of my time conditioning myself not to cry,” said 50 Cent, who is the modern archetype of hard-core rap. He paused and made the facial expression of a man doing sit-ups. “Don’t cry. In my neighborhood, things happened and you would feel it coming up. You couldn’t. If you’re strong and don’t cry, you’re all right. If you do? One person might see it and misinterpret it.”

The rapper shook his head ruefully. “And that can start a whole other scenario.”

He sat back and looked out the window of his trailer at a dusty parking lot in a run-down district of Toronto. He is in the midst of filming “Get Rich or Die Tryin,’ ” a film that uses the rapper’s life as its core story frame. He is following in the footsteps of Ice Cube, 2Pac and Eminem, all of whom segued from rap-world stardom into film with intense debuts in dramatic films. And this film is gritty, gritty, gritty -- dental-torture-and-scorched-corpses sort of gritty. It is not easily dismissed as a low-ambition strip mining of its star’s pop culture status; for one thing, it has in Sheridan a five-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker known for films that are both harrowing (“In the Name of the Father”) and heartfelt (“My Left Foot”). The screenplay is by Emmy-winning writer Terence Winter, whose stint on “The Sopranos” qualifies him as an expert on the profane poetry and death rattles of East Coast thuggery.

Last year, Winter traveled with 50 Cent while the rapper was on tour, to gain his trust and insight. The 56-year-old Sheridan, meanwhile, has bonded with his 29-year-old lead actor by impressing him with his knowledge of rap (“He knows his KRS-One, big-time,” 50 Cent said approvingly) and by hinting to his own hardscrabble youth in the tougher districts of Dublin and, later, New York. The trust was needed to get the rapper to claw his way through the script pages that call for the main character, a young hood named Marcus, to weep.

“It’s hard to let go like that,” 50 Cent said. He idly tapped at his trailer’s bulletproof window with his left hand. The hand is missing the top of one knuckle. “That’s from when I got shot.”

It was in May 2000, when a street rival rolled up and gunned 50 Cent down in front of his grandmother’s house. The motive remains hazy, but a few months earlier 50 Cent had begun his climb to fame with a vicious recording that insulted and threatened the top stars of rap. The shots should have killed him but later helped him make a living; as much or more than any of his songs, the pop culture back story of 50 Cent was shaped by that gunfire. As Madonna was to sex, 50 Cent is now to violence; she performed concerts in lacy lingerie -- he prowls the stage with ribs wrapped in Kevlar. And like the Material Girl in her heyday, much of America will pay to see what happens next.

What happens next is filming in Canada and is scheduled to arrive in theaters in November while the rapper is on tour with Eminem and others. On stage expect 50 Cent to be the glowering, lewd and brawny rapper known from his videos on MTV. For a surprisingly funny, animated and introspective view of the performer, you have to get a closer seat than they sell in arenas.

“When I was [on the street] I never went to funerals when someone got killed. We would go to the wake, see the body, sign the book, pay respects, and then we were gone ... nowadays, emotionally, I am probably 5 years old. Everybody cries, right? When I do, it’s out of nowhere and I’m alone.”

He is rarely alone these days; the film crew logs 15-hour days and then he’s in a mobile studio working with a close circle of his crew on the soundtrack. Then of course there are the bodyguards who are never far off from their employer, who at any given time is the target of rap rivals he has publicly mocked, tough guys who fantasize about a quick shot to notoriety or whoever else is “hating, hating, hating,” as he puts it. The bodyguards were even there when their boss was splayed in the street with fake gunshot wounds that were not too far off from his real scars.

“Laying there,” he said, “I wasn’t so much thinking what happened last time, I kept thinking about, you know, how it might happen again.”

50 Cent does not seem like he’s running scared. He moves with the fluidity of an athlete and, like a winning prizefighter, his bruises have healed into confidence. One of his songs, “Heat,” captures his world view:

I got my back against the wind

I’m down to ride ‘til the sun

burn out

If I die today, I’m happy how my

life turned out

See the shootouts that I’ve been

in, I’m by myself

Locked up I was in a box,

by myself

I done made myself a millionaire, by myself

A millionaire and then some; the rapper is, by estimates, a $50-million man now from his albums (12.2 million copies sold in the U.S. alone), concerts, video games, a ring-tone venture and a clothing line, the latter named G-Unit after his rap crew’s nickname. His popularity is beginning to rival his mentor, Eminem. Earlier this year, he became the first act since the Beatles to have four songs in the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

The most surprising thing about 50 Cent in person is the humor. This is a funny guy, not the sinewy Lothario with the reptilian rap delivery on MTV. He cracks up the set by decrying the indignities of enduring the three-hour gunshot scene while shivering on wet asphalt. “You act like you’re my friend. You say you like me. And then you say, ‘That was good, let’s do it again.’ To me, ‘good’ means we’re done! They don’t do that to Denzel. Denzel doesn’t have to put up with this, now does he? I don’t think so.”

On-screen parallels

Paramount PICTURES and the makers of “Get Rich” will roll their eyes at comparisons between this film and “8 Mile,” the 2002 film that gave Eminem a meaty opportunity to prove himself to an audience other than hip-hop fans. Still, the comparisons will be made often between now and the scheduled Nov. 11 release of “Get Rich.” Like “8 Mile,” this film has an acclaimed, “serious” director (“8 Mile” had Curtis Hanson, director of “L.A. Confidential” and “Wonder Boys”) and a semi-biographical plot that hangs loosely on the shoulders of its star like an old sweatshirt. Producer credits on both films include Jimmy Iovine (chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M; Records) and Paul Rosenberg (Eminem’s manager and president of Shady Records, which he founded with Eminem and is also home to 50 Cent).

One person who does not mind the comparison is 50 Cent. He has carefully watched the success story of Eminem and has no compunction about borrowing from its arc. The study of Eminem took 50 Cent to a place he hadn’t expected.

“I’ve listened to his music constantly to try to figure it out, how he can touch so many people. It’s because his music is full of family. The subject is family -- his ex-wife, his daughter, his mother. Where I come from there are so many broken families that we don’t place that much importance on it. It’s all about you as an individual, being independent and strong.”

The films of director Sheridan have often found their guiding compass point in family and the loss of family. From a distance, the Irishman may seem to be a surprise pick to be working on a violent, genre film with a superstar rapper, but on closer inspection it makes sense.

Sheridan’s early childhood was spent in close proximity to the hooligans and hoods on the streets of Dublin and he watched poverty and crime continue their partner dance when he spent his teen years in a tough district of New York City. “There are commonalities and shared truths there, between the Irish and African Americans,” the director said during a break in shooting last month. “Trouble is the same, despair is the same and violence is the same.”

As he spoke, Sheridan had one hand tucked into a sweater pocket and the other holding a piping-hot bowl of zucchini soup. The downy curls of white hair at his collar gave him the mien of a Trinity University literature professor -- except when he was barking out the ripe slabs of street profanity from the script. On this day, Sheridan and his crew were jammed into a Toronto nightclub called the Phoenix that stood in for a South Brooklyn pool hall. The scene simmered with tension -- it was building up to a horrific scene in which a suspected traitor has his teeth yanked with 11-inch diagonal pliers.

Sheridan sipped his soup as the crew arranged the lights and cameras. He has made harrowing films in the past -- the prison cells and political sins of “In the Name of the Father” spring to mind -- and he doesn’t take them lightly. “These are things 50 saw growing up, these are things I saw.” Besides their roots, the director and his star share a passion: rap music.

“Two dozen times, Jim has looked at rap projects but never found the one that measured up or the star he wanted,” says Arthur Lappin, an executive producer of the film and a longtime member of Sheridan’s circle of Irish collaborators. “He’s had a fascination with rap that goes back to the beginning of the music. Ten years ago he had a dog named Snoop.”

Mirroring his role in many events around the globe these days, Bono played ambassador, this time bringing together Sheridan and 50 Cent for “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.” The U2 singer was at Iovine’s home in early 2004 for a birthday party for Vicki Iovine, the author and wife of the record executive. The rock star had arrived with his pal Sheridan, who engaged in a long conversation about hip-hop with the music mogul. Winter had already been tapped to write a life-story project about 50 Cent, and Iovine pledged on the spot that Sheridan would get the first copy.

“With ‘8 Mile,’ the key to success was getting the right director, and we did that,” Iovine said last week. “The same here, and we absolutely got the best director. The goal was to make a movie about what’s behind the rage, which doesn’t usually happen in these genre films. Hip-hop needs a movie like ‘The Godfather’ or ‘GoodFellas,’ a film of that caliber, and that’s what the goal was here.”

A byproduct of the film has been the unlikely friendship between 50 Cent and Sheridan. In the pool hall scene, during a break Sheridan patted 50 Cent’s Yankees ball cap, cupped the back of his neck and then leaned in close to instruct him on the physical dynamics needed for a shot of the rapper’s character crossing the screen. The cast is almost entirely black and includes Terrence Howard (“Crash”), Joy Bryant (“Antwone Fisher”), Bill Duke (“Exit Wounds”) and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (“The Bourne Identity”). Many in the cast have described the project as a particularly intense one.

“Jim has a vision for this film and it is a powerful, compelling thing to be part of,” Akinnuoye-Agbaje said. “For [50 Cent] to start like this, with a director like this? That is jumping in the deep end.” Lappin said the rapper has shown no “pride or arrogance ... 50 is giving himself over. That’s not easy for a person to do.”

Just then the star’s voice comes across the room, playfully jeering Sheridan and his crew for some new indignity. He segues into a monologue about how the next “X-Men” film should star him as “a bad-ass evil mutant.” The big screen, he says, “just loves, l-o-v-e-s, loves me.” Vulnerable? Perhaps. Cocky? Always.

Later, in his trailer, 50 Cent changed his clothes (the pressed shirt he pulled on, of course, was emblazoned with the G-Unit insignia).

“This movie is big for me. I don’t see any limits. I have already exceeded the expectations of everyone around me.” The pivot point in 50 Cent’s career was when Eminem heard the New York rapper’s street-sold mix tapes and brought him up to the big time. Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, remains 50 Cent’s closest ally and role model. He speaks reverently of Eminem’s work ethic and attention to detail. “In the middle of the night, Marshall will be out in the backseat of his car in the driveway listening to some new track. He takes it out there ‘cause he says it sounds the way fans hear it. I tell him he is absolutely buggin.’ ”

50 Cent’s first album was the bestselling CD of 2003 and his critical acclaim was enough that it was a shock to many when he did not win the Grammy for best new artist. He memorably jumped from his seat at the 2004 awards show and went to the stage as if his name had been called -- an ominous gesture that likely lingers in the public memory more than the name of the winner that year (it was Evanescence, by the way). Despite it all, 50 Cent longs to prove himself to people who still dismiss him as a cold-eyed purveyor of thug music.

“There are people out there who are not interested in hip-hop as a genre of music, but they will sit down and watch a film based on my life after hearing pieces of my story,” the rapper said. “Like my grandmother, for instance. She really doesn’t want my music on in her house. She likes to listen to gospel music or something smooth. That’s her preference. But she will sit in front of the TV and watch this movie all day. And she already knows a lot of the story, right?”

A hard road traveled

Curtis JACKSON was born in Jamaica, Queens, and never knew his father. His mother was murdered before he hit his teens, and the circumstances of her death suggest she was involved in the drug trade. Her son went to his grandparents, but, with his world in chaos, the once-studious youngster began running wild and making street money in the street way, usually on a notorious strip of New York Avenue. He was arrested more than a few times on drug charges and remains unrepentant about those days. His passion was for rap music, though, and he focused hard on that path. He was signed to Columbia Records in 1999, and the label pulled him out of the neighborhood for studio sessions out of the city. One of the songs he churned out in that retreat was “How to Rob.” Even by rap’s raw standards it was shocking -- it was a street thug daydream about beating down top rappers and stealing their gold. It was not taken as metaphor.

50 Cent was in front of his grandmother’s house on May 24, 2000, when he was shot down. The incident became a sensation in New York but one with too many public-relations pitfalls for Columbia, which shed the young rapper. A reversal of fortune came in the form of a radio interview with Eminem, who name-checked the down-and-out rapper as his favorite rhymer. The two met soon after and, with producer Dr. Dre, 50 Cent was on his way with hits such as “In Da Club” and “How We Do.” Unlike Eminem, whose rapid-fire, mocking lyrics make him the Lenny Bruce of hip-hop, 50 Cent’s slowed-syrup delivery and un-ironic odes to guns, gangs and sex made him a less compelling figure to critics.

Fans, on the other hand, went mad for the antihero who most often appeared bare-chested to flaunt his sculpted musculature -- a buff physique that has diminished noticeably in recent months with his 15-hour work days and after-hours devotion to working on the soundtrack for the film. Along with huge sales came intense police and press interest in a figure who, like New York City, seemed to revel in gangster glamour, tabloid glare and street danger. 50 Cent made a habit of showing reporters his old wounds and, if they washed their hands first, he sometimes opened his mouth and let them insert a finger to feel the bullet fragments still lodged near his gums.

Now 50 Cent seems to be weary of the feuding and rivalries. The latest is with his former protege the Game, the Compton rapper who had a falling out with 50 Cent in New York a few months ago -- an argument that led to gunshot wounds for a member of the California rapper’s entourage. 50 Cent, who is brawny and clear-eyed in person, smiled and shrugged when asked if he is distressed by the gulf between him and his old mate.

“It is what it is. We don’t have much conversation. I accept it. I know what it was and is. I liked him enough to do what I did for him -- I wrote six records for his album ... he will find the only thing harder than making a hit album is making the second one.”

The filming now in Toronto will head to New York for the next two weeks, and it’s unlikely 50 Cent will be alone. A whole industry is stirred up by his presence in the city -- “It takes on a life of its own; I don’t do anything, and things are still crazy” -- and there is a mild sense of anxiety with the film crew about leaving the calm detachment of Toronto.

Last winter, Sheridan and 50 Cent spent their first workday together with an ad-lib day of shuttling across Brooklyn to get snowy exterior shots of the star for certain sequences of the film. There was no big crew -- just the director, the star and cameraman Declan Quinn, a stalwart of Sheridan’s crew and brother of actor Aidan. “It was no big deal, but it got ridiculous,” 50 Cent recalled of the day. “Everywhere we went, boom, there were 40, 50 people out of nowhere. I don’t know how or why, but it was nuts.”

50 Cent looked out the window of his trailer at a deserted parking lot and the meandering crew members during a break from the pool-hall scene. “I love New York City, but it’s the hater state. There are people who hate me.” He hopes the film will change some of that, but if not, well, he welcomes all challengers. “This is the chance to be something more than people expect. And I can’t wait for my grandmother to see it. But she won’t like that scene where I get shot. No, she won’t like that at all. She saw me get shot for real. She’ll have to close her eyes for a minute there. But it’s OK. She knows it’s coming this time.”

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Contact Geoff Boucher at C[email protected].