Eminem Pays Tribute to Late ‘8 Mile’ Director Curtis Hanson.
8 Mile Director Curtis Hanson, who was 71-year-old, passed away earlier this week at his LA home where he was found unresponsive and died due to natural cause says the police department. Curtis Hanson won an Oscar for screenwriting for L.A. Confidential and directed the psychological thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Eminem, who worked with him in “8 Mile” in 2002, pays tribute to the Late Director Curtis Hanson in a statement to Billboard. “Curtis Hanson believed in me and our crazy idea to make a rap battle movie set in Detroit,” Eminem said. “He basically made me into an actor for 8 Mile. I’m lucky I got to know him.”
Kim Basinger, Mekhi Phifer, Brittany Murphy, and Taryn Manning co-starred alongside Eminem in the semi-autobiographical drama. He also wrote the film’s hit song “Lose Yourself,” which won him an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
In an old interview with Rolling Stone, Late Curtis Hanson spoke about working with Eminem and praised the Detroit MC. “I knew going into it that he had experience performing and also adopting a character, Slim Shady,” Curtis Said.”What I was looking for was actually the opposite of that. When you adopt a characterization, that’s artificial. You hide behind that. What I needed in this story was the appearance of the complete lack of artifice. I needed the appearance of one more or less exposing himself emotionally. And, so in my getting to know him, I had to assess and then make an educated guess of whether he would be able to do that and whether he would trust me and the environment I would create enough to do that.”
Hanson also stated that he did not want 8 Mile to be labelled as a “rap movie.” “Most hip-hop movies depict the lyrics of specific types of hip-hop songs,” he explained, “You have a lot of guns, you have a lot of drugs and so forth. Our story is about hip-hop fans. They don’t live the life that is depicted in hip-hop lyrics, but they identify of the emotion of those lyrics.”
“8 Mile” debuted at No. 1 in theatres at the time of its release, grossing $51 million in its first weekend. It was the second-highest opening weekend for an R-rated film in the United States at the time.
In another interview with Rolling Stone, Curtis also praised Eminem, “He’s an extraordinarily gifted artist, “Curtis Said. “If Internet piracy kills the music business, Marshall Mathers need not worry He’ll have another career.”
In honour of the 20th anniversary of the 8 Mile movie, Eminem plans to open his Mom’s Spaghetti concept restaurant in New York City. Fans will be able to book seats to the pop-up and buy meals and personalised products from November 10 to November 20. “20 years later here we are serving spaghetti that came from a lyric I wrote for the movie,” expressed Eminem in a statement. “It started out as a joke but it’s become a reality and I’m really excited to be able to bring this concept from Detroit to NYC for the pop-up this month. B-Rabbit would be so proud!”
Check out some of the ‘8 Mile’ clips below.
[via : Billboard]
