"The Brave" 50 Cent

Curtis (50 Cent) Jackson makes his second big screen appearance in the touching and reality-based film Home of the Brave, the first bigtime movie dealing with U.S. veterans returning from the Iraq war. 50 plays Jamal, a soldier who is tortured by having to kill an Iraqi woman in the line of duty. His return to his old life just isn't working. After rocking the rap world with "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" and "The Massacre", taking on the film world should be a piece of cake. And playing a soldier? 50 has already been shot in a war... the Queens drug wars on the streets.

We met with the rapper/actor in a Beverly Hills hotel recently to get the scoop on his film career, new recording plans, performing for troops in Iraq, what it was like to not play himself but take on the role of a veteran and what it was like to co-star in a film with Sam Jackson who has voiced his negative opinions on rappers turning into overnight actors... interesting stuff...Picture the stylin' rapper wearing his G-Unit Heavy Weight tee in black with a black and white New York cap, big bling necklace and giant, left ear diamond stud. Nothing understated when you are dealin' with "Fiddy"...

TeenHollywood: You didn't walk in with a ton of guys. I expected a bigger entourage.

50: [smiles] I'm sorry to disappoint you. But I'm not touring. When I'm touring, I have some people around me.

TeenHollywood: How proud are you of this role?

50: Well I'm proud of it. I felt good. For me, it's definitely a challenge to be a part of a film project because I'm conditioned to music, so it isn't that difficult for me to create any more on that level. I just create a new goal for myself, and moving in those directions. That used to be a dream, but now I'm taking steps towards making my dreams come true, so I'll call it a vision. I see myself doing things even greater than I've done so far, even though I've accomplished a lot in a short period of time, I feel like I can do so much more. Home of the Brave, is just me putting one foot forward.

TeenHollywood: What drew you to this film?

50: I actually enjoy war films. The action; the cinema's incredible. It was a different thing just watching the film from an entertainment perspective, to actually doing the research and seeing the real motivation behind some of those films. It changed my perspective on it totally. I think death is a large form of entertainment for humans; it's our fate. So, in a lot of ways, people are intrigued or interested in it, without making note of it. Like, there's an accident off the road, we'll still have a traffic jam because they're gonna slow down to look.

TeenHollywood: Your character returns home after killing a civilian. Did that change his experience of the war?

50: I think, just in general, the experience itself alters the person period. Like I actually had the opportunity to perform for soldiers in Iraq, so I experienced being out there and as soon as we got there, the guys said 'hey, not gonna bullshit you, you could die today'. We ended up spending an hour and a half on the road to take flight in an actual military aircraft, to take us to the base, and then I performed for them, and I ended up having to stay there for five hours after we performed, because they had some activity there, and then they got us out of there.

TeenHollywood: That must have been pretty eye-opening for you.

50: My whole perspective on things was altered by that, just getting a chance to go out there. I believe your spirit changes with that much death around you. You're come over in a platoon of fifty people, and then the platoon has forty seven people, then your platoon has thirty people, and then they bring new people in to fill those beds. So you've got people there writing their death letters. They feel like tomorrow could be my day. So that's a whole other process.

TeenHollywood: As a young man, you had to be ready for a street battle any time. Did that help you with this war role?

50: Well, I've been in life-threatening situations before, so in the scenes I can kind of use that. But it's so far from what war is. What I've experienced maybe war is ten, twenty times worse than that. It's like, they ain't shooting little bullets. I've shot a nine-millimeter; those bullets are a lot bigger over there. Take nine of those and you're serious.

TeenHollywood: Compare acting and being in a music video.

50: There's so many other elements involved. You might be acting in the vocal pool; you might not be in an emotional state when you walk in there to create a song that comes to you as you start writing, that's emotional. And you change your voice to capture that feeling, but you're not actually matching your mannerisms physically, delivering it to camera. So it's a whole other process. When in a music video, you spend the majority of the time performing directly to the camera, and in film, the last thing you should be doing is looking directly at the camera.

TeenHollywood: So, are you officially Curtis Jackson as an actor and 50 Cent as a musician?

50: I think that would be a cool way to separate them, you know. When people see 50 Cent, they want the aggressive content that's in my music, that's a reflection of the environment that I grew up in. And when it's missing from the character, because it's not even written in the screenplay, they may be disappointed if I continue to use 50 Cent.

TeenHollywood: Was there a boot camp for this film? How was the physical training?

50: Yeah, it was like some boot camp training and stuff like that. It was pretty good, but I was in pretty good shape before that.

TeenHollywood: Better than the other actors?

50: [laughs] Yeah, yeah. So they had a tough time, you know, I kind of got through that.

TeenHollywood: So, in your neighborhood, you didn't have military recruiters trying to get you to enlist when you were growing up?

50: No. If there was a war, it was on 134th street.

TeenHollywood: What led you to the lawless life early on?

50: I got caught up in my ambition, the same thing that drives me today. I feel like that was the same portion of my character that lead me fast into the wrong direction, early. My mom made that mistake. She didn't see public assistance or welfare as an option, so she went to the street to provide for me the way she knew how. She substituted finances for time. Every time I seen her, it was Christmas. After she passed, I went to live with my grandparents, and they had eight other kids so I fit in as the baby. [Being] number nine, I didn't want to ask them for anything, even though they would try to compensate for my mother not being around, I felt it could be a strain on them, so I asked the people who appeared to have it with no problem [to help me] and those were all people from my mom's life.

TeenHollywood: This is an unpopular war. Will that make it harder for people to want to see it on film?

50: I think this particular film is so different, because it's more about the return. It gets past the actual war itself. Jarhead with Jamie Foxx was basically about not getting a shot off, the entire film.

TeenHollywood: What's going on with you musically now?

50: Musically, I've got a new album. Finishing up. I'm about two songs away from being done. You should be looking forward to me releasing it late in the first quarter. It's called "Before I Self Destruct".

TeenHollywood: After 8 Mile, did you get any hints on acting from Eminem?

50: I spoke to him before I did "Get Rich", but he's not a big help for me. [laughs] We've become such good friends that he'll take advantage of opportunities to make me uncomfortable for a moment, like he'll call and go 'yo, they told me you're doing a film'. I said 'yeah. They told me they thought it'd be a good idea if I did one based on my life, because you did 8 Mile,' and he said, [sighs] 'you're gonna hate it, you're gonna be there for like eight hours every day, they're gonna expect you to make amazing songs in between cuts!' He called right after we wrapped, and he said 'yo, you like it'? I said it was all right.

TeenHollywood: Did he do any production on the new album?

50: Absolutely. We already worked together. We recorded eight records. Three of them are physically gonna be on shelves in December, because he got a project called "Re-Up". I actually performed on the single. It's me, Eminem, Lloyd Banks, and Ca$his.

TeenHollywood: How will you make sure your next album hits and keeps the top spot?

50: I'm gonna just control the quality of the material. I run into the pressure between each one of my projects. There's a shadow of doubt cast over every artist in between projects. They don't say, 'can I make a good record?', because I've proven that over and over again, they say 'can he do it again?' Which means, can I have the same success I've had on my last projects. When I had my first album sell eleven million records, my follow up album "The Massacre" sold nine point five million world wide. It's a huge task to create material that can compete. And music marks time. You'll remember what you were doing around that time when that record was really hot and you enjoyed it. And it's difficult to come up with something that marks that tomorrow. It's a lot more difficult than just saying 'she's got a really nice booty, let me see you move it baby'. [laughs] You can do that for fun, but you've gotta come up with something that has some real content and some substance that people can sink their teeth into and really enjoy.

TeenHollywood: In the film, your character just can't let an old girlfriend go. Have you been in that situation?

50: I didn't have anything that I'd deal with on that level. It was weird though. When you do the research, the guys [soldiers], when they get there, the girlfriend is everything that's running across their mind, constantly. Then they get their letters, and their phone calls, that say 'Hey, Jody's got your girl now'. [laughs]

TeenHollywood: Did you have any worries about taking a role in a film with Samuel L. Jackson after what he's said about rappers and acting?

50: I didn't have any apprehensions on that level. I think I actually understand it now, what he was saying. You've got people that went to school for acting, and have acting as a goal, like all their lives. And they see someone receive an opportunity to do what they really love, working with people that they haven't had the opportunity to work with, even though they have the type of accomplishments that Samuel Jackson has, it'd make him uncomfortable. Like maybe he'd like to work with Jim Carrey, and hasn't had the opportunity to do that. So he'd look at it and go, 'a rapper'? They can actually work with Will Smith, he's a rapper. You can actually work with Queen Latifah, she's a rapper. You actually work with Ice Cube, he's a rapper. There's a lot of people who have successfully made the transition from music to film

TeenHollywood: So there wasn't any trouble on set between you two?

50: Sam, on the actual set, I watched him, because there's nothing I can do but learn from Samuel Jackson at this phase. When I wasn't acting with him we had really good conversations. We actually talked about his film Snakes on a Plane. And I told him I'm absolutely not goin' to see that one. Snakes and planes at the same time? It's a super duper phobia, [for me] for that one. He laughed at me, he said 'all right, I'll see you at the box office. You're gonna go see it with everybody else'.

TeenHollywood: Do you think you could have played Sam Jackson's role?

50: At this moment? It would've took a lot more time for me to get old enough. It would've definitely been a hair and make up thing. But Sam is a huge talent, man. It's tough to say I could compare to him. You're talking about my second film, how many films has Samuel Jackson been in?

TeenHollywood: Lightening up... What gift would you like to get for Christmas?

50: Christmas? I got my two front teeth. Um. I don't know. I always buy myself nice things. Last year I bought Lamborghini. They actually pulled me over in it in New York City. New York City's not a nice place to go with nice cars. The cops will still harass you. They pulled me over. L.A.'s better. They're familiar with seeing those things in Hollywood. The police look and go 'oh, okay'.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.