Raise Your Eyebrow to the Sky, Wave It Side to Side.

Just in case you haven’t been following the recent developments in the casting of the Christopher “Notorious B.I.G./Biggie” Wallace biopic, we thought we’d bring you up to speed here.

Last week, the project, currently titled Notorious—to be directed by George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food, Men of Honor)— found its lead in Atlanta-based rapper, Gravy (aka Jamal Woodard). Yeah, we’d never heard of him, either, but reportedly, he won a nationwide casting search. He’s also known for being shot in the buttocks on his way to a Hot 97 radio interview in 2006. He finished the interview before seeking treatment for the wound. Go figure.

Also cast last week were:

  • Angela Bassett as Biggie’s mom, Voletta Wallace. We feel that this is perfect casting, as Angela Bassett lives for biopics and is usually quite good at them, especially if the role requires some good old fashioned righteous indignation, and as we know, the role of Voletta Wallace certainly does.
  • Anthony Mackie as Tupac. Now we’ve seen Mackie be great and we’ve seen him be… not great at all. We think a lot rides on the writing with him. Does he look like Tupac? No. Can he embody Tupac? Well, he’s played him before, actually, in an off-Broadway play, so we’re willing to wager he can. But the more to-the-point question for this writer is: How did Biggie get a feature film before Tupac? Sure, Tupac got an Oscar-nominated documentary and some stage plays, but he’s like the Rodney Dangerfield of rapper biopics. MC Hammer got that bad VH1 film (with the late Lamont Bentley making a cameo as a really poorly characterized Tupac); Eminem got the semi-autobiographical 8 Mile, for which he took home the first Best Song Oscar offered to a rap song; and now this. What gives, Hollywood? Anyway, moving on…
  • Derek Luke as Sean “Puffy/P. Diddy/Diddy” Combs. Sigh. This one ought to be interesting. We wonder if Diddy auditioned to play himself and was turned down before they offered it to Luke or if Diddy wants no parts of a Biggie biopic, because he’s “trying to put that era of his life behind him.” It’d be interesting to find out.

This week, even more folks were added to the cast, though these new additions aren’t nearly as high profile as the three supporting characters above.

  • Antonique Smith as Faith Evans. We haven’t been able to gather much about this young woman, other than that she’s a singer and her only other film work was in Across the Universe, where she’s billed as “Hooker.” She’s also appeared on Broadway in Rent, in one episode of Law and Order and in four episodes of a 2002-03 series called 100 Centre Street. Could this be a career-making role for the striking chanteuse?
  • Remember when scandal rocked the teeny-pop set when too-grown-li’l-girl group 3LW kicked their cutest member to the curb, after allegedly throwing a KFC two-piece dinner with mashed potatoes and mac and cheese at her, then the remaining two members moved on up to that good Disney Dollar by hitching their bad-singing wagon to the Raven Symone-driven Cheetah Girl franchise? Well, if you remember news that obscure, you may have found yourself wondering what happened to sista-done-wrong Naturi Naughton. Wonder no more. Tillman Jr. has cast her as—get this, y’all—Li’l Kim! We love it. Redemption at last! What’s that? Can she act? Reeeally doesn’t matter once that check’s cashed, does it? (What can we say? We love a good comeback story.) No, but for real, after her “disastrous breakup” (read her MySpace bio, y’all.) with 3LW, she landed a role as Little Inez on Broadway. Following that up with a role as Li’l Kim seems like a logical next step for an up-and-comer, right?

So what do you think? Is this shaping up to be a promising project, with Tillman Jr. at the helm and this cast in front of the camera? Weigh in below.

slb

slb (aka Stacia L. Brown) is a writer, mother, and college instructor in Baltimore, MD. Check her out here: http://stacialbrown.com and here: http://beyondbabymamas.com.

Latest posts by slb (see all)

  • i wonder if they’ll detail any of Biggie’s alleged physical abuse of Faith.

    (If his mom signed off on it, I’m guessing that’s a no.)

  • Steve

    Or what bout Biggie gettin Kim pregnant and telling her to get an abortion?

  • quadmoniker

    I was expecting the example of Anthony Mackie’s not-so-stellar work to be “She Hate Me,” the worst.movie.ever.made.

  • ladyboss09

    yet another terrible hollywood idea.

  • slb

    QM: I’ve vowed never to watch “She Hate Me,” so I couldn’t cite that one. lol

  • Yeah. That Biggie was a winner, huh?

  • quadmoniker

    SLB: That’s probably a good thing to do. Let’s just say I had to watch it against my will. I kept thinking “Maybe, any minute, I’m going to see that he’s cleverly playing with these stereotypes, only to turn around subvert them.” But no. They were just stereotypes.

  • QM & Stacia: is there another director who is as hit or miss as Spike? Do The Right Thing< is a certifiably great film, and while I’ve never seen She Hate Me, it can’t be as bad as Bamboozled.

  • quadmoniker

    Probably not. But maybe that’s part of being great? A.O. Scott wrote a piece a few years ago in the Times, in which he argued that there aren’t any really great movies any more because there aren’t any really horrible ones. He was saying that studios are too afraid of a bad film to let a directors vision run free. The “running free” allowed people to be really great and really terrible, sometimes at once, he said. Regardless, I think Lee’s at his best when his work is mitigated by another presence; like when he’s directing someone else’s script.

  • quadmoniker

    Or in the beginning, with Do the Right Thing, which I he was making before he was “Spike Lee!” and I imagine people weren’t too afraid to let him know when he was running off track.

  • slb

    I bet there are a ton of directors as hit or miss as Spike. Would ol’ boy count, John Singleton–or is he just really bad all the time… except for Boyz in the Hood? I mean, I find Higher Learning entertaining, but it’s not that good. And I won’t get into his other work. I think the thing about Singleton, though, is that his stuff’s more debatable than Spike’s. I know as many people who dig Baby Boy as people who detest it. Same with Four Brothers. Same with Rosewood. Same with Higher Learning. But I’d be hard pressed to find five people who like Girl 6 or She Hate Me. (Or Summer of Sam. Or 25th Hour.)

    Mira Nair, one of my favorite directors, is pretty hit or miss. Ridley Scott? I’d have to give it a lot of thought. M. Night? lol (Hey, aside from “The Sixth Sense,” I *liked* “Lady in the Water.” And “Unbreakable.”)

    I agree with QM on Spike being better when he’s directing someone else’s script (at least since “X.” All his stuff before that was *quite* entertaining). I also agree that he was better before he and others started believing his hype.

  • Stacia: Have you seen Boyz in the Hood lately? It hasn’t held up too tough.

  • slb

    I didn’t mention Boyz in the Hood on the grounds that *I* think it’s a great, timeless film. It’s just… the most well-respected of his works and he was Oscar-nominated for it. Whether it’s aged well or not, it’s a film that many still feel was one of the most socially relevant Black films of its time (which… I mean, the ’90s didn’t produce many [any?] films that’ve aged well, though several of them seemed to be well-revered and somehow of-the-moment back then. Boyz was definitely at the top of that heap. I know you’re gonna be all, “Well, consider the heap…” but c’mon).

  • Steve

    I don’t think anyone in their right mind would like Girl 6 or She Hate Me but Summer of Sam and 25th Hour weren’t bad movies

  • LMAO @ We wonder if Diddy auditioned to play himself and was turned down
    Re Derek Luke: I think he has Diddy’s swag. But when you think about it, Diddy is really a caricature of himself so he shouldn’t be hard to play.