FILM I HISTORY
The Only Thing Worth Mentioning About 2Pac’s ‘Poetic Justice’
That he refused to take an HIV test for a love scene.
In 1993, after his first debut role in Juice, Tupac Shakur’s acting career was rising. While ruling the music industry as an influential rapper of the 90s, he started pursuing a film career, another passion of his. Only a few knew back then that Tupac studied acting in high school and starred in several Shakespeare plays as a teenager. He had a natural raw talent that needed polishing to make him believable on screen as someone else than the big-mouthed, justice-seeking rapper. His unfortunate early death prevented him from becoming just as big of an actor as he was a musician.
In John Singleton’s 1993 feature Poetic Justice, the leading role was offered to Ice Cube initially. However, Ice passed on the opportunity saying, “Man, I can’t do that. I’m not a romantic guy.” So, the door opened up for Shakur to play Lucky the mailman, who dreams of a music career and falls in love with Justice (Janet Jackson) on a road trip to Oakland. This was his second role and the only one in his short-lived film career where his character wasn’t associated with crime or drugs.
Everything was going fine on the set until the day Tupac had been approached by a crew…
