Anthony Mackie will never forget his first.

Discussing his film debut in 8 Mile, Mackie remembered star Eminem as “such a brilliant dude” on Tuesday’s episode of Pivot Podcast. He recalled a particular day on set when the rapper, born Marshall Mathers, told him, “‘Yo, it don’t make sense that we beefing.’ I was like, ‘Right?’ He was like, ‘I need something on you.’ So we’re talking. We talked for, like, two hours, chilling. I’m like, ‘All right, man, I’ll see you later.'”

Mackie went to the casino near where they were shooting in Detroit, and that was that — until the climactic filming of Mackie and Eminem’s characters’ rap battle the next day.

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8 Mile is a semi-fictionalized account of Eminem’s rise through the ranks of the Detroit rap scene in the late 1980s and early ’90s. At the film’s climax, Eminem’s Jimmy “B-Rabbit” Smith Jr. faces off against Mackie’s Clarence, a.k.a. “Papa Doc,” at a widely-attended rap battle, where B-Rabbit crushes his opponent with savage bars tailored with a shocking amount of specificity to his life.

But not Papa Doc’s life, Mackie’s. “That’s why I’m standing there like, ‘You’re talking about me! You’re not talking about Clarence!'” Mackie exclaimed. “That has nothing to do with the character. You’re an a–hole, Eminem. I’m like, yes I’m gonna fight this motherf—er,” he playfully ribbed.

Mackie recounted a somewhat different version of that story on the Rich Eisen Show in 2021, telling the former sports commentator that Eminem first asked his consent before adding some personalization to the script and didn’t get the details from Mackie himself.

“He was like, ‘I was reading the script, and I was kinda thinking, there’s no reason for me not to like you. You’re a cool dude, I like you.’ I was like, ‘I like you too.’ He was like, ‘Cool, so you don’t mind if I add some stuff in the script about you?’

Mackie made sure Eminem meant the character, not himself, and once he was given that assurance, he gave the rapper the green light. “So he goes and his entire battle, the final rap,” Mackie continued. “He Googles me and learns about me and all this stuff. He basically makes fun of me as Papa Doc. I’m like, ‘Well that’s a little too personal there, Mr. Marshall!'”

A rep for Mackie did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment on the discrepancy between these accounts. EW also reached out to a rep for Eminem.

8 Mile was also Eminem’s film debut and took the film all the way to the Oscars, where he won Best Original Song for “Lose Yourself” in 2002.

Eminem largely stepped away from screen roles after 8 Mile, occasionally cameoing as himself in films like The Interview and playing small roles in series like BMF. Mackie has grown in prominence as an actor, most recently starring in Marvel film Captain America: Brave New World, in which he replaced Chris Evans as the titular superhero.