50 Cent wears Jacket Public School New York, Shirt Factor’s, Glasses Jacques Marie Mage, Tie Paul Smith, Ring David Yurman, and Watch 50 Cent’s Own.
Curtis “ 50 CENT ” Jackson has always been the main event—as a Queens drug dealer who survived nine gunshots, as a rapper who sold tens of millions of records, and as a producer who built Power into one of the biggest franchises on TV. Now, at 51, he’s playing Balrog, the brutal boxer in Street Fighter . The role, based on the classic ‘90s arcade game, had him training nonstop to get in fighting shape. But, as he tells his co-star, podcaster and comedian Andrew Schulz , he was built for this.
50 CENT: Yo, you wouldn’t take it. People will never believe that story, but I felt bad. I just wanted to give it to you.
SCHULZ: Would you really have given it to me?
50 CENT: Yeah, because you know I respect you.
SCHULZ: I will never accept a watch from you, but it was a very kind offer, after you spilled champagne on me. Maybe that’s something we can tell the readers, that if you’re ever around 50 Cent at a restaurant, try your hardest to make sure he spills something on you so he’ll remove his gold-encrusted—or his diamond-encrusted—Rolex and give it to you on the spot. I know we have to talk about the movie, but there’s so many more things I want to ask. While you were on set, you kept saying this movie is going to do wonders for your sex life. Have you seen that come to fruition?
50 CENT: Not yet. That’s why I’m here, my brother. I’m trying to elevate.
SCHULZ: Every time a camera crew interviewed anybody on set, 50 popped in and was like, “Hey guys, this is my movie and it’s going to do wonders for my sex life.”
50 CENT: I had so much fun out there. It was more physical for me because I had to be on camera with these guys who’d obviously been focusing on fitness. Some of those fighters looked crazy.
SCHULZ: You’re the only person who’s lost weight legitimately in the last four years.
SCHULZ: No one’s going to believe you did it without the fat drugs.
50 CENT: I wish I had that shit, don’t get me fucking wrong.
SCHULZ: Bro, I remember you called me from fucking Poland or something like that, two weeks out from Street Fighter .
50 CENT: I’m training twice a day because they want to see abs, bro. I’m running, boxing in the morning, then the cryo thing, and then weightlifting.
SCHULZ: And you weren’t eating shit. That’s really what it was, right? You said you were on all liquid.
SCHULZ: I asked Cale [Boyter], the producer, “Do you need me to get in shape for this role?” He looked me up and down and said, “Just be funny.”
50 CENT: We had a super talented cast. What’s his name with the big hair?
50 CENT: Eric is dumb funny. Does he do stand-up?
Sweater and Pants Mr. P, Necklace and Ring David Yurman, Watch 50 Cent’s Own, Belt Ferragamo, Shoes Stylist’s Own.
50 CENT: That was an experience. That whole time in Australia was cool. When Cale took us on the boat—
SCHULZ: Or you renting out the entire theme park.
50 CENT: That was my response to the boat.
SCHULZ: [Laughs] This is how competitive you are. You’re in Australia for a month. Is there a part of you that goes, “I’m away from everything. I’m away from drama. I’m away from chaos. I’m away from projects.” Do you get to be kind of a normal person?
50 CENT: It’s an escape from the 50 Cent business, because while I’m out there, I stop communicating as much. They know I’m working, so everybody kind of falls back. It’s work, but it’s also vacation, because it’s nonstop.
SCHULZ: You’ve spent your whole life studying power. What’s something powerful people understand about human nature that everyone else spends their life learning the hard way?
50 CENT: I think influence is power. Some people love me and some people hate me, but it’s just me being me. Look, I can still be overconfident, but that’s because I had to be confident when I had no supporters.
SCHULZ: Yeah, success does bring a new bag of difficulties. They’re worth having, but managing them is different. The rise is way different, I imagine, than sustaining it. Did you feel that way?
50 CENT: Yes, because when you’re coming up, something organic happens that’s so powerful. You look at it and go, “Whoa, we never get a second chance at a first impression.” And that impression, when it comes, is like, boom. The world’s in agreement that this shit is good. You’re taking off, you’re going, and it’s a rollercoaster. A man actually becomes as attractive as a beautiful woman.
50 CENT: Because stability is attractive. Them looking at you and knowing the financial component is going to take away the pressure they may feel, it almost puts you in a dream sequence. You don’t personally have to be stylish. My stylist has to be stylish. They’re picking out my clothes. And if you got help with what you decided to wear today, how is that not the best version of you? You see what I’m saying? They have an opportunity to meet the best version of you because of the position you’re in. That’s how we see the person’s personality after they settle in. After they’ve been there for a while, you see who they actually are. And if not, we see the gimmicks. We see things like the Basquiat hair. When that comes, you go, “No, it was intentionally grown out for a Tiffany ad.”
SCHULZ: [Laughs] Okay. We’re not going to get through an interview without—
50 CENT: The puffy hair, cut it off. Go back to young me.
50 CENT: If you have a strong enough relationship with the tour companies, they’ll do a touring deal with you because they’re securing the tour deal with Beyoncé .
50 CENT: When they have to do things to broaden your audience, they may do New York and Detroit. He’s done this before. He’s done the stadium in New York. Him and Em[inem ], they matched him up with the biggest rapper in the world like they’re the same.
50 CENT: We do your hometown and then my hometown. That’s just to change perception and make him appear as big as Eminem. Bro, the album showed up number 23 on the chart when it debuted. It was not a fucking big deal then. Why is it a big deal now? It’s great marketing.
SCHULZ: Did you know they first went out to Jay-Z for the Balrog character in Street Fighter ? [Laughs]
50 CENT: Ain’t no motherfucking way. No, bro.
SCHULZ: [Laughs] I think this might be the only time I’ve seen 50 Cent look legitimately upset.
Shirt Factor’s, Pants Mr. P, Tie Paul Smith, Ring David Yurman, Watch 50 Cent’s Own, Belt Ferragamo.
50 CENT: He is not working out for nothing. They can’t pay him enough to do some shit like that.
SCHULZ: Your understanding of the game has always surprised me—influence as leverage, influence as power. But once you have influence, you become threatening to people who have power. I’ve seen you wield your influence, especially in this new sphere of entertainment. You tell me if I’m off, but it’s funny how you are so connected with what your audience likes, how they will like it, and where they’ll watch it. That creates influence outside the network, because you’re offering your people to the network. You’re not entertaining the network’s people.
50 CENT: I’m bringing people to the network.
SCHULZ: That was the logic the whole time?
50 CENT: Yeah, I’m not bending or doing things they want me to do. I’m making the things I want to make. Power was a passion project. I was paid $17,000 an episode. I was playing a recurring character, executive producing the project, doing the theme song, and being the head of marketing, because they didn’t know who Omari Hardwick or Naturi Naughton or Joseph Sikora were in the very beginning.
50 CENT: Until season three, they wouldn’t accept the cast if I wasn’t available. I did Jimmy Kimmel [ Live! ] and while we were off-camera he was like, “What network is it on?” I said, “Starz.” He said, “That’s not a network.” It was that new.
SCHULZ: Now that streaming platforms are easily accessible, if you have a great show, people will find it. They found Yellowstone on Peacock or whatever it was. You did that before the streamers were a thing.
50 CENT: Look, we’ve had really successful projects because we haven’t seen a lot of things that represent the lifestyle.
SCHULZ: Is it like you need a kid who grew up around some mob stuff to write an authentic mob movie? If you just have some white kid from the suburbs writing about what he thinks Italians are, or writing about what he thinks the hood is like, it’s going to be a glamorized, dramatized version.
50 CENT: Right, and at certain points he’ll go past the mark. He may have the guy doing something far more than the guy would really do.
SCHULZ: Because that’s what you think someone like that would do, but if you’re in it, that’s where you pull back.
50 CENT: Yeah. I was challenged when I had to kill an old lady with a Jesus Saves pillow. When I read it, I called Courtney [A. Kemp, the creator of Power ], and I was like, “Yo.” I didn’t ask her to change dialogue or scenes, but I’m like, “Can I be high?” Because I’m thinking, “What would make someone do that?”
SCHULZ: You don’t think a sober street dude would do something like that?
50 CENT: Nah, not an old lady. The sober street dude is helping her get her shopping cart up the steps.
SCHULZ: Here’s an interesting component I picked up from reading an interview. I’ve seen a lot of dramatized versions of people who break the law for a living on television, and it’s always this “fuck the cops” mentality. What was interesting in this interview was the guy, a gangster, was like, “I didn’t really hate him. Their job was to stop people from breaking the law. I wanted to win, but I wasn’t angry at them for doing what they’re supposed to.” To me, that was a much more interesting dynamic.
50 CENT: When you grow up under those circumstances, you end up knowing people in law enforcement.
50 CENT: They’re from the neighborhood. They already know you from before they had this job. And when you see all that, you can’t hate them for doing their job. It changes how you look at law enforcement.
SCHULZ: Yeah. You’re making sure people who do break the law get behind bars through documentaries [a reference to the 50 Cent-produced docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning ]. You’re doing the lord’s work.
50 CENT: Yo, look, when you tell these stories, it’s important to stay grounded, and I want the gunshot to matter. I want you to feel what happens. I’m working with Chad [Stahelski] now. He directed Keanu Reeves .
50 CENT: Yep. I got a project with him now. He’s getting ready to direct, and action is super exciting. I love action films, bro. For me, the action film is the only movie where I can know who’s not going to die. I know the outcome, and I’m still excited about what I’m watching. I know who to root for. Hollywood picks people in our culture. You could clearly see they picked Michael B. Jordan to make great films. A trailer only gives us a minute and 30 seconds to excite people to want to see the movie. After it plays for that minute and 30 seconds, they get to decide. For Street Fighter , we have a built-in advantage from the game. The audience already knows the moves and the characters, so they want to see the actual storyline.
Shirt Factor’s, Suspenders Stylist’s Own, Tie Dior, Ring David Yurman, Watch Omega.
SCHULZ: Our connection to the game was built on us playing it our entire childhood. Us being in this movie is the icing on the cake, especially since this story is going to blow their minds.
50 CENT: When they watch the trailer and see us in action, they’ll go, “Oh, shit, now I want to see that.” There’s a formula that works consistently, like Marvel. None of them have failed, bro. Think about how long we’ve had Marvel and Disney characters put into our consciousness. Since you was a little kid. If nobody had a Mickey moment, I ain’t cool with that. Never loved Mickey Mouse? Fuck you, bro. That shit happened way too early. You don’t have the ability to be a hater at that point.
SCHULZ: When are we going to get Gangs of New York ? Because when you were a youngster, you were in the streets, and New York City had this incredible dynamic within organized crime. Different ethnic groups had different sections of the city, each with their own equally unbelievable stories. I don’t know enough, but I imagine they were all interfacing with one another, like the Flying Dragons down in Chinatown interfacing with the guys in Queens and Harlem and the Bronx. To me, that’s also the heyday of hip-hop in New York City.
50 CENT: When you use the word organized in the context of criminal behavior, it means intelligence. When I say organized crime, you only think of white Italian Americans. You don’t think of any other ethnicity.
50 CENT: No, no, they don’t call them organized.
50 CENT: Yeah, they’re not going to call it organized because saying that meant they were intelligent or smart.
SCHULZ: You’ve built a career reading people. How can you tell someone is betraying you or lacks loyalty?
50 CENT: It takes time, but you’ll see it in their behavior. Usually you’ll watch them develop a stronger comfortability around people who are at odds with you.
SCHULZ: Maybe I’m naive, but I’m shocked how opportunistic loyalty is in this business. I get it. I’m talking about befriending people who are maybe at odds—
50 CENT: It’s like they have no compass because they’re really not—that’s their way of betraying you without actually doing something to you.
SCHULZ: And that’s why they can sleep at night. They’re like, “Well, I’m not technically doing it.” It’s like, “But you know what you’re doing, which is even more duplicitous.”
50 CENT: Yes. And when you trip, I’m going to laugh when I see you fall. There’s no sympathy for winners. I know if I fucked up, Andrew, they would have a field day watching that. And I’m already prepared to not give a fuck. If things don’t go right for me, I don’t care, bro. I spent years preparing to not care about what other people feel about me. I’ve developed a way to comfortably function under those circumstances. We’re going to see if they did.
50 CENT: My setbacks are from my get backs, and I know you could feel a whole gratification at the point you think I’m down. Drew, this is not complex, bro. This is really simple shit.
SCHULZ: Last question. You play Balrog, one of the most iconic villain characters in Street Fighter . What makes a great villain?
SCHULZ: The villain having lack of information, or us having a lack of information about the villain?
50 CENT: No, it’s them not having a clear understanding. Being aggressive because of their experience. It’s not like Balrog just got out of jail. The aggression in there is a part of what he’s displaying in the movie. When they made the character, they were basing it on Mike [Tyson] . If it wasn’t boxing, it would be armed robbery.
50 CENT: The aggression in there is wild, but it’s pure. He completely adjusted and learned everything under Cus D’Amato. But that shit is still in there. The viciousness.
SCHULZ: The viciousness is authentic. He just started to understand why he feels those things.
50 CENT: And how to harness it. That’s more terrifying, when the person you’re dealing with doesn’t even understand why they’re angry or why they’re volatile. You don’t know what they’ll do next.
SCHULZ: Ladies and gentlemen, the man, the myth, the legend, 50 Cent.
Source: Fashion
0 Comments