Director F. Gary Gray transformed a group of newbies to perfectly bring N.W.A’s story to the screen. They talk to BuzzFeed News about how it all came together.
O'Shea Jackson Jr., Jason Mitchell, and Corey Hawkins star as Ice Cube, Eazy-E, and Dr. Dre respectively in Straight Outta Compton.
Macey Foronda / Via BuzzFeed News
While the young cast of Straight Outta Compton was filming their first scene as N.W.A performing at a nightclub, the actors decided to give director F. Gary Gray something he hadn't quite seen before.
Before they launched into "Dope Man," they clutched their mics and contorted their faces into rappers the world has been familiar with for nearly three decades. They went slightly off script, and riffed lines that the actual group very well may have said during a live performance — and in that moment, it was evident that the actors weren't just resembling the men who rattled the government with their polarizing lyrics about police brutality and street life; they had actually molded themselves into Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella.
They were N.W.A.
But it wasn't easy to find the actors who were capable of that feat. "It took years and a lot of training, a lot of consultants, and intense boot camp to mold them into N.W.A," Gray said in an interview with BuzzFeed News.
When it came to cast the biopic about one of hip-hop's most notorious groups, the creative team behind Straight Outta Compton agreed that they needed new faces only. "The story is so strong, that if you cast a celebrity mimicking another celebrity … you end up distracted," said Gray, who got his start as a music video director, most famously for Ice Cube's "It Was A Good Day."
His team took nearly two years to find the right actors for the lead roles of Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), and Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson Jr.). The remaining two members of the group, MC Ren and DJ Yella, are heavily featured in supporting roles that casting director Cindy Tolan knew she'd find along the way.
"The casting directors … did an amazing job," Gray said. "They took my shit the whole time, demanding perfection and finding our groove. People [will] say, 'Wow! They look like N.W.A!' But that wasn't even my focus. My priority was performance." After finding their stars, Gray created an eight-week boot camp that had the actors gaining weight (Mitchell), losing weight (Jackson), working with a DJ coach (Hawkins), and re-recording N.W.A's debut album, Straight Outta Compton, in order to help transform them into the world's most dangerous music group.
By re-recording that album, Gray said, "They are able to live in the character's skin. You start to take on the nuances of the group by studying what they rapped about, and how they performed. By the time I put them in front of the camera, and onscreen and onstage, they pulled it all together."
And here's how they got there.
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