Over two years after his major label debut, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson's straight out of the hood story has achieved almost legendary status.

To Buy Soundtrack
Click Here

• 50’s drug-hustling mom found dead under suspicious circumstances;

• 50 is taken in by his grandparents, but nevertheless becomes a crack dealer at age 12;

• 50 stops pushing drugs and starts spitting rhymes;

• 50 signs with Jam Master Jay’s JMJ Records and subsequently signs with Columbia Records;

• 50 is shot 9 times with a 9mm in the limbs, torso and face while sitting in a parked car in front of his grandparents’ home.

• 50 is dropped by Columbia Records and his “Power of a Dollar” CD is shelved;

• 50 builds an incredible underground following through the mixtape racket after a lengthy recovery;

• 50 signs a $1,000,000 record deal with the Shady/Aftermath imprint of Interscope Records;

• 50’s album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” becomes the largest debut in Soundscan history and eventually sells more the 12 million copies globally; etcetera, etcetera…   MORE >>> 

With anyone who is as talented and driven as 50, the legend continues to grow. Nevertheless, many are either unfamiliar with the artist or dismiss him as another proponent of gangsterism and misogyny through music.  With the film “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” 50 Cent hopes to reach some of the uninformed.  “The film is an opportunity for me to expand my base.” noted 50 during an interview in New York to promote the release of the semi-autobiographical narrative.

“There are people who don’t choose hip hop as an art form that can sit and watch a film based on my life story. They’ve heard from so many media outlets pieces of stuff about me.  Now, they get the chance to see for themselves,” added 50.

Through the release of the film and its related soundtrack, 50 stands to further fatten his already bulging bank account.  But if the film “Get Rich” was only about trying to make another dollar out of 50 Cent, then the cinematic tale of an impoverished young man’s rise from hustler to hitmaker would lose its allure soon after the opening credits cease.  However, in the hands of Jim Sheridan (In America), Get Rich has greater depth and compels a more thoughtful examination of the circumstances that combined to make 50 Cent. MORE >>>

In writing the screenplay, Terence Winter (The Sopranos) thought it was important to emphasize that “just because you’re born into a situation that doesn’t mean you’re condemned to stay there.”

In the film as well as in reality, 50 and his character Marcus abandon the life of a street hustler to follow the artist path.  The catalyst, 50 affirmed was the birth of his son Marquise. “My son became a priority in my life…I had to change things in order to be able to provide for him. So, I started writing music full- time,” said 50.

In order to create the fictionalized parallel version of 50’s life, Winter spent several months on tour with 50, conducting numerous interviews.  Winter, who has written extensively for television (a more writer friendly medium), knew that his initial draft of the screenplay would change once Sheridan began production on the film.  Noting that about 60% of what he wrote made it on film, Winter revealed that Get Rich’s surprising shower scene was Sheridan’s idea.

“The shower scene wasn’t based on anything real. The scene was constructed to introduce the character Bama and start his friendship with Marcus.  In my first draft, that scene took place in the exercise yard. While Marcus was doing push ups, a guy came up to him with a shiv,” Winter explained.

Acknowledging that the exercise yard knife fight has been seen countless times, Winter stated that setting the attack in the shower “made the scene much more vulnerable and horrific” and the setting “amped up [the scene] by about 50%.”

Sheridan confided that he pulled from his past to construct the shower scene. “I made up a little stupid fight that I’d seen where I grew up,” Sheridan said.

“I’ve been attacked with knives before and the feeling is like castration. You’re definitely going to protect your d!ck,” the director exclaimed.

“In the scene I wanted to get sudden fear. Otherwise, you’ve seen it in every movie,” Sheridan noted.

Before shooting the scene, the director received several dispatches from Paramount Pictures. “Everybody was coming from the studio with notes to me. I was being reminded everyday that I had to shoot the actors above the waist and they had to have towels on,” Sheridan said.

Sheridan attempted to shoot the scene with the actors wearing flesh tone shorts, but the shorts darkened when they got wet.  Exasperated, Sheridan asked Terrence Howard (Bama) and 50 to shoot the scene nude. 

“I saw my friend Jim Sheridan sitting there struggling for two hours trying to shoot a scene that he wanted. We tried to do it with the covering, but it was not a part of his vision and it was hurting him. I saw him sitting at the monitor just rubbing his head,” Howard remembered.

Howard approached Sheridan about filming another take and Jim explained that the scene doesn’t work with the body covering.  Howard, who was unaccustomed to disrobing in a movie, realized how important the scene was to Jim.  Seeing the director’s creative anguish, Howard took his drawers off.

“I turned to 50 and said ‘this is us. This is who we are,’” Howard stated.

Chuckling, Howard recalled 50’s response, 50 said to him “F#ck you! I ain’t doing that sh!t. They’re not gonna put up a poster of you. They’re gonna freeze frame and put up a poster of me and say ‘look at 50’s b!tch a$$.’”

But Howard was persistent.  He asked 50 to try it because Jim really needed the shot. According to Howard, “50 said ‘F#ck it!’; took his drawers off and the other 3 people in the scene did too.”

After Sheridan yelled “cut and print,” signaling the satisfactory filming of the shower scene, the director beamed.  “Sheridan was all alive and I was happy then,” Howard reflected.

Howard was so pleased with the results of trusting Sheridan’s instinct that he was comfortable poking fun at his full frontal performance in the shower scene.  “No, that was a stand-in. I’m much more endowed that or it was a very cold shot,” the actor joked.

50 confirmed that the decision to perform in the buff wasn’t automatic.  Although 50 wondered whether he was “going too far” by completely disrobing in the shower scene, he reminded himself that he went into the film project saying that he wouldn’t limit himself.

Asked to explain how he was able to convince his cast to perform in the emperor’s clothes, Jim bashfully mused, “I don’t know…God gave me a thing that when I go on a set, people think I won’t let them down.” MORE >>>

50, who feels good about his performance, isn’t ready to sign up for another film project just yet.  Instead, he will continue to make music and don his actor’s cap again when a role comes along that is perfect for him.

Nevertheless, 50’s fellow cast members, Joy Bryant (Charlene) and Howard, were both impressed with the vigor and professionalism that 50 brought to the set.  “50 was very focused and on point every minute that he was on set…He put in the same dedication and focus that he does in everything else. He was very eager to learn and humbled himself to be able to learn,” said Bryant.

Howard added, “I think he’s brilliant because of his willingness to try something new.”

“Now is he still struggling with it? Yeah, he’s still working it out. But damn it, I’m still working it out. I’m still trying to get at it,” Howard declared.

Howard also brushed aside any suggestion that he feared violence would erupt on the set because of 50’s well-documented feuds with other rappers.  “I think I got more enemies than him. I thought 50 was wearing a bullet proof vest because of me,” Howard said.

Bryant also found the notion that she should have feared for her safety during the filming of Get Rich odd. “That [suggestion] is just the mass hysteria surrounding 50,” she stated.

Bryant also rejected the claim that the film glamorizes the thug life. “The film portrays a certain lifestyle accurately and fairly,” Bryant noted.

50 is more effusive and reasons that “people who assume that [the film] is glamorizing the life obviously haven’t experienced anything that they’re looking at. At least, [the film] will give them an opportunity to open their eyes to things that are going on in different places.”

In fact, Get Rich subtly de-glamorizes the life of a dealer.  During a voiceover, 50’s character Marcus declares that a street hustler is worse off than a minimum wage earner, considering a dealer’s poor working conditions and lack of benefits.  And this is a view that 50 quickly affirmed.

“When you think about it, the guy who hustles may acquire [money] faster, but he never develops a credit history. The guy who works a 9 to 5 is in a better position financially than the guy out there doing the wrong thing. Even if the hustler acquires the finances, he ends up spending it on lawyer’s fees,” 50 asserted.

Despite having done the wrong thing for a number of years, 50 has come to terms philosophically with his past.  “I feel like the things you go through make you who you are. So, I say that I needed those experiences making mistakes in order to be who I am right now,” 50 reflected.

Yet even with his phenomenal success, 50 would forsake it all for his heart’s desire.  “I’d trade everything I have right now for my mother,” 50 wistfully stated.

And in that moment, the heartbroken child in the body of a man surfaced.   M

November 2005