While promoting his supporting role in the “Get Shorty” sequel, “Be Cool,” Benjamin shared a few tidbits on a couple of his upcoming projects: “Four Brothers” and the OutKast movie:
What Audiences Can Expect From “Four Brothers:” “John Singleton directed it. It’s a story about four brothers that grew up, we were adopted as kids. It’s myself, Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson and Garrett Hedlund. We grew up together. My three brothers left town. It takes place in Detroit. [They] left town [and] I’m the only brother that stayed and made something of myself. I have a family. I have a wife and two kids, and someone kills our mother who adopted us. My brothers come back into town for the funeral, but not only the funeral. They do a little investigation to see if the cop’s story is true. To see if it was a random shooting in a convenience store - and it wasn’t. It was a hit and so we have to find out who did it. There’s a lot of twists and turns and that’s all I can really tell you right now, but it’s fun. (Laughing) We’re in Toronto right now shooting on a frozen lake.”
The Audition Process and “Dream Girls” Rumors: “I haven’t heard about ‘Dream Girls.’ As far as auditioning for ‘Four Brothers,’ John Singleton knew he wanted me to play the part, but for studio execs a lot of times they may not know so you have to prove to them. There [were] a lot of great actors up for the part so I had to compete.
I just finished a Guy Ritchie movie called “Revolver” and I was shooting it and I didn’t have time to go for an audition. So what they did they set up a screening where [‘Be Cool’ director] Gary Gray showed them the footage from this movie. [Writer/director Bryan Barber] showed them footage of the “My Life in Idlewild” movie and I did an episode of “The Shield,” so they just put something together where they could see something and that was pretty much my audition.”
What’s Up With the Outkast Movie?” “The Outkast movie we finished. I haven’t seen it. When I’m shooting a film, I don’t look at playback. I don’t go and do a scene and then hurry up and watch what I just did. I never look at it so I haven’t seen any of it. I talked to Bryan the other day - Bryan Barber directed it - and he told me that it looks phenomenal.
It’s a musical. It takes place in the 1930s. It’s a love story mixed with gangsta story. …I play a mortician [who is a] son of a mortician. Generations of morticians. Big Boy’s character is this hustler guy who, he has to end up taking over this club, a little juke joint type of thing. He gets mixed up in smuggling liquor. I fall in love with this girl who comes into town… I’m not going to tell you the whole story, but it’s done and they’re trying to decide right now if they’re going to release it in theaters or not. HBO, they want to release it in theaters, everybody wants to release it in theaters. We’ll see when the final, final [cut] is done. They’ve only seen one cut of it and it got a standing ovation for one cut. The music wasn’t even in it, just kind of rough pieces. So we pray that it works.”
The Song Count: “I don’t know a count, but we perform. It’s a musical so I may be sitting in a room and start going off into a song.”
Who is Bryan Barber? “He's a longtime friend that’s been around Outkast for a long time. We actually write together. Me and Bryan wrote the story of this movie and Bryan scripted it and made it into a screenplay. We've been working together, writing treatments for “Heya” and “Roses” so we always have this cool kinship. He went to film school in Atlanta and so this will be his first feature.”
The Style: “Hmm, I can’t tell you that. You gotta see it. I’m sorry. …It may have touches of the period. It may be new. I’m gonna tell you this, it’s not straight ’30s music, because we’re not from that era. We’re not trying to play it true to true. It’s still OutKast music, but it’s a perfect fit. It’s a perfect match. It's not out of place at all.”
