Demetrius Shipp Jr. on becoming Tupac

Q: Was there one scene that you couldn’t wait to film because you knew, “I’m going to kill it!” ?

A: The concert scene. (laughs)

It’s so funny because, LT– the day before I was rehearsing, and LT was like, “Man, your energy ain’t there. You got to take it up. You got to be like…” We was just rehearsing. It wasn’t nobody in the crowd, but I know the whole time, “bro, don’t even trip. (laughs) I got you. It was a good time, so that’s the one scene.

Q: Because you have such a striking resemblance to Tupac, do you feel like that put on any extra pressure for you to perform this role?

A: No. Not the resemblance. To me that’s just the foot in the door for me, because obviously– it might not be hard to believe, but there were a lot of people that had the look. Honestly, some videos LT showed me– there were people coming in there… I was like, “Damn! That’s close right there!” (laughs) So, I do think that was like a foot in the door, but LT said, “You know, at the end of the day you’ll get the acting down. You’ll get the chops up, and you can have a great run at this.

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