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Ice Cube has had some memorable roles in his acting career: Craig Jones from Friday, Calvin Palmer Jr. from Barbershop, and Nick Persons in the family comedy Are We There Yet? But apparently, one role was offered to “The N*gga Ya Love to Hate,” and Cube apparently hated it enough to forget about doing that movie altogether.
“I turned down the 2Pac role [of Larry “Lucky” Knight] in Poetic Justice,” Cube said during a recent interview on Big Boy’s Neighborhood. The hip-hop entrepreneur was there to talk about the return of his basketball league, Big3, and his Hollywood legacy when he divulged that info. “[Director John Singleton] hit me up, he was gonna give me pay, too.”
But Cube said that Singleton kept holding off when it came to seeing the script. When he finally did get the chance to read it, Cube wasn’t okay with how Lucky was characterized and asked Singleton to fix it before he could do the movie.
“He didn’t wanna change it,” Cube said, “so I didn’t wanna do it,” But then he went on to clarify the hang-up. “The problem was, me playing [Lucky], I don’t think I’d kick my homeboy out the car for a girl I just met when we got to Oakland. I didn’t think that was cool. It kinda made the character a sucker to me.”
Cube almost reconsidered for the opportunity to act alongside Janet Jackson, admitting he was “tempted.” But he also believes the final casting was right. “I’m glad 2Pac did it. I think he killed it,” he said.
It turns out Poetic Justice wasn’t the only movie he passed up, either. “I was asked to come in and talk about O-Dog, about being [Kevin “O-Dog” Anderson] in Menace [II Society],” Cube said. He had appeared in Singleton’s 1991 classic film Boyz n the Hood and as Trespass‘ Savon the following year. So when 1993 came around, Cube was over it. “I didn’t want to be typecast.”
Check out the YouTube link above and tell us if Ice Cube made a mistake in passing up those roles.
