(upbeat music)
- Hi this is Marya Gullo from the Hollywood Reporter
and I'm in studio today with O'Shea Jackson Jr.
- How you doing?
- Hey how are you?
- I'm good, chillin'.
- You came in here with such a good mood
and you're happy.
Like I just feel like you are young Hollywood.
- Man, thank you.
- You're like.
- Trying to make it work.
- Yeah, you're kind of like at this
really great moment in your career
where everything's opening up to you.
- Definitely.
- Just like a few years ago you were doing your first movie,
Straight Outta Compton.
- Scary.
- Yeah, yeah and now you're getting some interesting roles.
- Yeah, it's really been great.
Straight Outta Compton was the personal piece for me,
but then after that I had to figure out
what's the direction I want to go in.
I really wanted to go the opposite
so I went to Ingrid Goes West
and that was dark comedy.
- [Marya] Right, which was great.
- Yeah people really loved that.
Shout out to Neon.
That got me into Sundance.
I've never been to Sundance,
so that got me into Sundance.
That was dope.
Then after that we did Den of Thieves.
And Den of Thieves was my first action movie.
Den of Thieves kicked my ass a little bit,
just on making it.
The success of it has been so good
that you can't help but feel some sort of glory
from all that hard work you had to put in.
- Yeah, yeah, it was like a slow burn.
- Oh yeah.
- It was word of mouth that's how it got popular.
- Then when it finally came out,
the success of the film and just the good feeling
of being there at the premier it was.
I'd do another one if they wanted me.
- Oh we will be talking about that
because there is a Den of Thieves sequel.
- Yeah, that's what they say.
That's what I read.
- Nice, nice.
You were a screenwriter.
- Yeah.
- And so when you saw this script where you interested?
Because this is a script that kind of been bouncing
around Hollywood for a while before it got made.
There were a lot of different names attached to it.
- Yeah, yeah, I really just told my agents like
I need to do something dope.
Even though in Den of Thieves I do get beat up a bit,
I wanted to be in a dope movie.
And for it to be an L.A. movie it was just like
the icing on the cake.
When I talked to Christian Gudegast, the director,
he's an L.A. boy.
All we did was talk about the Lakers.
You know Lonzo and everything.
So that's all I really needed to be.
- While you were filming in L.A.?
- While we were filming, before,
like that's all we would get on, is the Lakers.
And he's like a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu,
so he'd be talking to me about stuff like that.
I really have no take on that.
Like UFC and stuff like that.
- You're like cool.
- Yeah he could beat up everybody
on set that's what's up. - That's a great sport too.
- It just looked like a juicy film.
And then when I got to the end
and then when I realized what part I got
I was like oh yeah this is going to be a good movie.
- I mean that's pretty great because this movie
does play around with a lot of really fun things
because you know it's the ultimate bank heist.
There's like the military men,
and the kind of bro code thing going on.
I feel like it gets into the realm of what
it's like to be an infantryman.
- Yeah for sure.
- That kind of mindset.
Then it just twists.
It turns the table on you
and it says the people making out in these heists
might not necessarily be the guys
who are holding the big guns.
- Yeah, just when you think you know everything
is just black and white,
you have an idea of where things are going,
you realize how smart of a movie Den of Thieves is.
And the little things that you should have been
paying attention to and the little hints that we feed you
throughout the film.
I think that's what makes it fun.
I think that's what makes people really enjoy it.
I read the tweets all day about people who are still
seeing Den of Thieves for the first time.
And you know I love it.
I love it and I can't wait to do more.
- That's awesome.
Yeah it's kind of fun to be like the guy
who you're not paying attention to in the movie.
- Oh that was great.
- Ends up being the most important person.
That's pretty cool.
- Yeah but you get choked out by Gerard Butler in a hotel.
- Okay, yeah, we got to talk about that.
- Beat up all the time.
- Gerard Butler, as just somebody who only has seen
movies that he's in,
seems like a legit crazy person.
- Oh yeah, we all have to be.
Everybody who plays pretend for money
is a crazy person.
You know that's just how it is.
But yeah, Gerard's super professional dude.
Me and him, coming up my acting coach was Aaron Speiser,
and that's Gerard's acting coach.
So we had that little bit of connection.
I've always wanted to work with him.
You know I would call him Leonidas because 300 fan
you got to call him Leonidas.
And during that screen in particular,
I had to let him know.
- When he's chocking you out?
- Yeah, yeah he asked you know is this too much
what's going on.
And I told him I'm a pro wrestling fan man.
You can give it to me.
I got a big brother.
I've been chocked out before.
You know, let's really get it
because I know as soon as we get it
we get to go home.
So let's make this real.
Just give me nine good seconds and I'm good.
- So all of the coughing that you did afterwards
and the difficulty speaking some of that was not acting.
- No, no, no, I was perfectly fine.
But you know, it does help when you know how to cough.
See what I did, slight joke.
- Okay, so you're signed on for the sequel then?
- Oh well, that's not what I heard.
No we're in negotiations right now,
but everything is real close.
I'm excited to get started working.
- [Marya] I hope if films in L.A.
- Oh no, apparently we're going to go to Europe
with this thing with the diamond heist.
- Oh that's right.
- Yeah so.
- Oh yeah you got to pay attention to the end guys.
- Yeah I'm going to be eating some bland food.
- [Marya] Overseas.
- Overseas, it's going down.
- That's awesome.
It's one of the things about being an actor
you have to at least make one movie in like Budapest,
or Hungary.
- Yeah, passport ready.
- You know like one of those
crazy eastern European countries.
- Yeah, I definitely am going to enjoy.
I got a press tour coming up for
Godzilla: King of All Monsters
and that's going to take me around the world all right.
- That's amazing, are you going to be seeing some countries
that you've never seen before?
Have you already been on tour?
- I've been to Japan.
I did music tours with my dad before I was an actor.
Australia, I love Australia.
I can't wait to get to Australia.
Japan, definitely would love to see
a better version of Japan.
I went to Nagoya and like that hotel was the airport
so it was weird set up.
- [Marya] Whoa.
- Yeah, it was a weird set up.
So I can't wait to see more of Japan.
- Are you a fan of monster movies?
- I'm a fan of monster movies, most Anime,
video games, and A&W root beer.
- Nice.
- And I'm a left Twix guy.
- And you're drinking it while you watching.
You're a left Twix guy.
What are your favorite monster movies growing up.
I mean obviously there's Godzilla.
- Yeah Zilla.
I loved--
- Any version that you liked, there's so many?
- Yeah, because there's different versions of him.
The 90s one where he looked like he had that grimace to him.
They kind of took him a little bit too far
where he kind of got like a cat mouth
and I don't like that one.
But Godzilla, I've always loved just how big and bad he is.
As a kid you don't care about the people at all.
You know fast forward to these monsters.
And then I was also a fan of Guyver,
it was like an old cartoon about this dude
who got this suit from space and he could call on anytime
and he would fight monsters.
Gundam Wing, I'm a fan of Gundam Wing.
Transformers always.
I want Pacific Rim to be bigger.
I really dig the idea of Pacific Rim,
so I'm definitely into that type of stuff.
- I feel like--
- I don't like Kong.
I don't like Kong.
- Yeah, he's not your guy.
- I just thought like oh he's a big gorilla.
I see gorillas all day.
I can see that anytime.
- What's so special about him?
- Yeah it's a gorilla.
- I feel like with Game of Thrones now,
they've really thrown down the gauntlet
about how a creature can look.
Like the dragons have become kind of amazing on that show.
So I'd be very interested to see
what this Godzilla looks like.
Have you seen any sketches?
- Oh yeah, Godzilla is definitely big and bad
this time around but the, I'm a Godzilla fan.
The guy who takes the cake this time around
is King Ghidorah, that's the one he fights.
- Oh yeah, three heads are better than one.
- Yeah three headed golden dragon.
- But no arms.
- It's amazing.
No he gives Godzilla some work in this movie.
You got to see it.
It's pretty good.
- That's awesome.
Did you ever see Gamera?
- Gamera, no.
- He was like a turtle.
It was like a different Godzilla.
It was at the same time as Godzilla.
They were doing these Gameras and it was a turtle
that had like rockets coming out of its butt.
He was like a fake Godzilla.
- That sounds like blast to us.
Oh now I'm a Google it.
I will google this Gamera.
- Have you ever seen the Busta Rhymes Got You All in Check
with Godzilla.
- No.
- You got to check that out.
- You're putting me on internet game.
- Look it up on YouTube. - I love it, I love it.
- You got to look that, it's so good.
It's Got You All in Check but Godzilla.
- But Godzilla, I'm with that.
- Perfect, you know, the one thing as a girl
I was watching Den of Thieves
and I was like where's the lady action.
And I was wondering, do you have any actresses
that you would love to do an action movie with?
- Yeah, she's on my head about it right now, Aubrey Plaza.
Aubrey's on me so tough about writing a script
where we just go around merking people.
- Buddy cops?
- No, she wants to be like aggressively killing people.
So you know I'm with it what ever she says.
- Like a California sequel.
- Yeah, hey I'm trying to figure it out back at the house.
Look for it coming soon.
Aubrey I'm working, I'm sorry.
- That's great, okay, I've got a couple of questions
before I let you go.
- Yeah, all good.
- [Marya] First job that made you think I've made it?
Even if it wasn't true.
- Where it was like I made it. - [Marya] Could be any job.
- Well my dad let me go on tour with him
I actually performed. - How old were you?
- 18, I actually performed songs with my dad.
I was on there as his hype man.
There's just a feeling that you get
when you're standing in front of a crowd
and you got crowd control.
My biggest issue with myself,
my biggest battle is I'm real easily content.
Like it doesn't take a lot to please me
so if I like it, it'll work.
And I've always got to force myself to stay hungry.
So I know that Straight Outta Compton definitely
gave me a good feeling.
You know, when you win an award.
MTV award, my pops never got one of those.
We don't have no popcorn at the house.
So I was able to bring in the first bit of popcorn,
and that was another huge moment for me.
So little things like that,
but I know I've got a lot more work to do.
- Yeah, yeah, we'll it's always good to keep yourself
moving forward like a shark.
- Exactly, I got to move forward.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.
- But I like just hanging out too,
like hanging out by a pool.
- I'm so good at hanging out.
- Like five years could go by.
Then you're like I got to get a job.
- Yeah god, where's my mom.
Shout out to my mom.
- Popsicles, I'm going on a weird tangent.
Best costume you've ever had to wear for a job?
- I had to wear a jerry curl and a gold chain
for this movie I did.
That was a pretty good costume.
I know the dopest costume I've ever put on
was Pac-Man for Halloween.
And I was like really like in a ball,
and my chick at the time was Tomb Raider.
So we was Pac-Man.
- Nice I love that, that's great.
- This video game couple.
- It's old school and new school.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Last time you made a mistake and how did you fix it?
- That's hilarious, I accidentally dropped the hookah
and it went onto my Playstation 4 and I fixed it
by buying a new Playstation 4.
- That's good, that's good, it's very practical.
Worst audition experience.
- I would have to say the two years
that I had to audition for Straight Outta Compton
are by far the most grueling experience
because it's one thing to just do it
and they be like all right you're not for the part
or getting a call back.
But when you don't get a call back for like six months
and you don't have a job and you just dropped out of college
to do this job.
And then another six months go buy,
so this two years kind of builds up.
Nice little nightmare, so thanks Gary Gray.
- Well O'Shea thank you for being here.
- Thank you for having me.
- You can check out Den of Thieves,
its coming out on Blu-Ray.
- Yes, hard copy.
Unrated, deleted scenes, more Shea,
what more could you want?
- And Godzilla is 2019.
- 2019, also look out for Flarsky.
I play Seth Rogen's best friend
and he's trying to get after Charlize Theron
it's really funny, really raunchy.
- Nice, all right, bye guys.
- Have a good one.
No comments:
Post a Comment