NOTORIOUS 'an essaysandthings' Q & A with director George Tillman Jr.

I thoroughly dig The Notorious B.I.G. He is clearly one of the best to ever touch the mic. He’s a story teller, an icon. What other rappers struggle to do came easy to BIG. It’s been 12 years since Biggie was ripped away from us. While Hip- Hop is the hottest genre of music today, Big’s absence has forever bent its structure. I caught up with George Tillman Jr. the other day. We chatted a bit about his experience directing the film NOTORIOUS and his thoughts on Christopher Wallace, the man, the rapper.

LBE: First of all thank you so much for calling. I know that you’re crazy busy promoting the film. So I truly appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I have a few questions. And I want to tell you that I LOVE BIG!

GT: No problem. No problem. Good.

LBE: Biggie’s death is still a hot topic, still an open investigation. How difficult was it gathering information about the film?

GT: We focused more on the stuff that people don’t know. We focused on his life in general; his life from age 13 to 24. What made him who he is today. How his life changed over the course of 24 years. And we get into a little bit about the death. You know, it wasn’t really complicated. When we got around to the Quad studio scene with Tupac, and when we got around to the L.A. stuff, it was a little difficult but at the same time what we’re hoping is that the movie is going to open the doors for a lot of that stuff to come out.

LBE: How involved were Big’s friends & family (Mrs. Wallace, Faith Evans, Diddy) in the making of this movie and what was it like working with them?

GT: It was great. You know, when I first heard that Ms. Wallace was going to be on the set every day...

LBE: Everyday?!

GT: Yeah, everyday. I was thinking that she was going to be there trying to maintain what goes in the movie and what doesn’t. But she was cool. She was very open about showing the good side and the bad side. She always recognized that her son had another side to him; a dark side. And she feels that it’s very important for the audience to be able to experience both sides. So it was great.
C.J (biggie’s son) is in the movie and that allowed Faith to be around a lot. She was great to talk to. We got a lot of inside scoop. Puffy was around a little bit. He didn’t get a chance to be on the set as much. It was a little emotional for him. He respectfully allowed me to make the kind of movie that I wanted to make. We just got a few notes here and there. So it was really good. We had Junior Mafia, Money L, (Biggie’s real hype man) We had a lot of his people around, Lil Cease, Nino Brown. All of these guys were around when we were making the movie so it kept things authentic. It kept things real.

LBE: Was Lil Kim around or was she locked up at the time?

GT: No, I saw Lil Kim one time. It was really complicated. Something went down with her and the family early on before I got involved with the film. She came one day to the pre-production office and she was pretty upset. And, um, that’s the last time I saw her. I wish she had a chance to see the movie because I think she would love the movie if she saw it. I think she has issues about some script that she saw before we even shot the film.

LBE: How was it working with a new crop of talent? I understand that Biggie’s character Jamal Woolard, is a new guy. Was that challenging for you and if so, in what way?

GT: The whole movie was challenging because these are real people. Biggie died only 12 years ago. So a lot of these people are still alive. It isn’t like most bio pics where the person died 30 or 40 yrs ago. That made it very difficult. These people are still in the public eye. People have their own ownership of who these people are. A lot of people own Biggie and really love him as an icon. So that it makes it very, very difficult to get the movie right. We knew that we had to come with it every day. We had to boot camp and work with new actors. Everybody had their heart in it and we just took it an extra 200 percent to get what we needed to get across.
Having new actors is the best thing because it brings a new concept to an idea when the audience is watching. It doesn’t bring extra baggage to the table.

LBE: Well you pretty much knocked out my next question (lol) which was going to be -Do you think that there was extra pressure making a movie about a person that many in this generation consider an icon?

GT: Well, Biggie is an icon now. When he was around he wasn’t. What we tried to do in this movie is show you Sean Combs. Puffy isn’t Puffy or P. Diddy. He’s a guy, hustling who lost his father at a very young age. Just like Biggie comes from a single parent, single mom. You know, these guys had gifts and vision. A lot of this movie is really the genesis of who these people are in the beginning. That’s what makes it exciting; not portraying what people see on ‘Making The Band’. We’re portraying these people in the early stages. And that alone will make the film more universal for everybody.

LBE: What are we going to learn about Biggie that we don’t know now?

GT: I think that people are going to learn a lot. Really. You know his mom called him ‘Chrissy Poo’. And then he was Biggie Smalls. He was Notorious B.I.G. and then he became Christopher Wallace. So we watched the evolution of a young man becoming a man. And how he struggled with being a father, struggled with being a son, being a husband. He was all these things. And he was doing the wrong things for the right reasons at certain times. He made a lot of mistakes along the way. This is about a person coming full circle and realizing some of the mistakes that he made. So we’re looking at a movie that universally deals with a lot of men , especially African American men in general. Some of the issues and problems that we’re having in our society, we kind of represent that.

And music takes a back seat. But we have a lot of music. We have like 6 concerts. The fans will enjoy the music but you’re going to see a little bit of the struggle and how he dealt with that. How he looked at his life especially after Tupac’s death. You know, when Tupac died he had 5 or 6 months to really look at his life. And that car accident really let him look and analyze certain things. That’s why you can look at “Sky is the Limit” and listen to that song. He’s talking about a whole different thing on that album. So this is for people really being able to realize that the icon is human. And the human aspect is very close to what I may be dealing with in my own life. You’re walking away with a tear jerker, bittersweet, but you’re going to be walking away feeling good.

LBE: Can we look forward to any unreleased music from Big on the soundtrack?

GT: Yeah, the soundtrack comes out Tuesday. Sean Combs (Diddy) will be using about 5 or 6 original demos that’ll be on the soundtrack. Some of these demos are actually performed by Jamal in the movie. So you’ll get a lot of new stuff. Again, it’s about the beginning. And that’s what we’ll be representing.

LBE:Does Jamal actually do the vocals or do you use Biggie’s Tracks?

GT: When Jamal’s performing the vocals are his. When Lil Kim’s performing the vocals are Naturi. Any singing is Antonique (Faith’s character). We come with it with performance and just get them as close as we can to these people and sometime you can’t tell the difference. But we’re also using Biggie’s songs in the movie. And you would never know. So all that stuff is live. It’s done live.

LBE: What’s your favorite Biggie song?

GT: I got two. One is ‘Warning’. Besides Biggie’s flow, he was a storyteller. He told stories in that song. And not until years after that song was released did I realize that it was him doing both vocals. I really looked at his technique as an artist on that song. And he listened to country music. So that’s how he learned how to tell stories.

LBE: That is funny.

GT: Yeah, you’ll see that in the movie too. His mother loved country music. That’s where that story telling comes from. And the second song is ‘Going back to Cali’.

LBE: I love that too.

GT: I think the reason why I think I like it so much is because part of the evolution by the end of the movie, you know, people will see that Big knew that the last thing for him to do as a man was to go back to L.A. to repair that relationship. He had to go back. And even though he knew there was danger out there, he still went out there. And I think that song represented that. He wanted to heal the relationship with the L.A. crowd, with Tupac’s crowd. He wanted to move beyond that. And I think it was very heroic for him to do that.

LBE: How big a part does Tupac play in the movie?

GT: He’s a big part of the movie. There’s not a lot of scenes with him. But a lot of people didn’t know they were friends. That’s what we show is the beginning of their friendship and how that friendship became strained. And Anthony Mackie did a good job.”

LBE: HE IS FANTASTIC! Did you have any reservations or fears about making the movie?

GT: Not really, I’m like 8 years between directing movies. I’ve been producing the last year. Trying to get back into directing. Something was telling me not to do those other movies that I turned down. Something was telling me that, to lead me toward this movie. It was very difficult. It took a year to get it. Something was telling me that this is what I was supposed to do. I think I was destined to do this movie to really show that we’re not making a hip-hop film. We’re making a movie with real characters that has hip-hop in it. I never really liked any of the hip-hop films that came out ,maybe 8 mile. But I feel like it was my destiny to really create a genre that people can look at and say ‘these are real characters’ It’s not just a black film. It’s a film for everybody. The characters are very well thought out, very well arched. You look at all the characters and it has a theme in the film. I feel like I had to do it. Even though there were reservations in the beginning, I felt like I would be adding something to this movie.

LBE: If Biggie were alive what do you think he’d say about the movie?

GT: I think he would say 'You got it. You got me.' Cause a lot of people only saw Biggie smile one time and it was on the 'Hypnotize' video and that was his last video. All the behind the scenes footage that I saw he was always smiling, always laughing, cracking up. He was very charming. He had to be charming to get the kind of women that he got. He was funny. And what we captured is his lovable attitude and his personality really comes out.
And another thing I think he’d be happy with, on the musical tip, is his shows. A lot of people haven’t seen his concerts. He was really only on 2 tours. A lot of people didn’t see his shows. So here you get to see a full show… how he did it. And we got some of his real guys, Money L, who’s his hype man , Dj Enuff, whose his real DJ, Nino Brown, those guys are on stage with Jamal. So you’re getting it right as if he were doing a show.

LBE: Well George THANK YOU so much. I’m glad you’re doing this film. I will be there opening weekend. And I’m wishing you the best.

GT: Thank You.