Eminem’s epic 8 Mile rap battles have long been part of hip-hop movie lore. Anthony Mackie, who played Papa Doc and lost the final battle to Em’s B-Rabbit character, revealed that Em actually used part of the actor’s real life story to diss him in the 2002 film.
Mackie joined The Pivot Podcast on Tuesday (March 11), during which he recalled confiding details of his life to the Grammy-winning rapper, such as growing up in a two-person household and attending The Juilliard School, which ended up backfiring.
“Eminem is such a brilliant dude,” he said. “We’re on set one day and he’s like, ‘Yo, it doesn’t make sense that we’re beefing.’ I was like, ‘Right!’ He says, ‘I need something on you.’ So we talked for, like, two hours, chilling.”
Mackie continued: “I go to the casino. The next day we’re shooting the battle scene, and that’s why I’m standing there like, ‘You’re talking about me, you’re not talking about Clarence. That has nothing to do with the character. ‘You’re an a–hole, Eminem!’ I’m like, ‘I wanna fight this motherf—-r!’ I’m like, ‘Yes, my parents are still married.’”
8 Mile arrived in 2002 and served as the first credited acting roles for both Eminem and Mackie. Em went on to win a best original song Oscar for the film’s “Lose Yourself,” while the actor went on to star in multiple Marvel films.
In an interview earlier this year with Esquire, the actor evealed his role was originally supposed to be much smaller as Papa Doc, and he pitched the idea of his character delivering a better performance in the final battle.
“When we’re doing the scene, it was like everybody there was a rapper, so everybody was kind of talking trash cause they knew I wasn’t a rapper,” he told the magazine. “And I was like, ‘Yo, I’m tired of this, man.’”
Mackie added: “This was nothing about Papa Doc — this was Anthony Mackie had to live with being murdered this awfully forever. So yeah, it was an awful moment in my life.”
Watch Anthony Mackie’s full interview with Pivot below.
