Craig Brewer habla de Justin

Craig Brewer, director de Black Snake Moan habla de Justin Timberlake en una entrevista.

Can you talk about casting Justin Timberlake? I heard you really wanted him in that part. Can you tell us why?

Craig Brewer: Yeah, even before «Hustle and Flow» happened, when I was just making movies in Memphis on my video camera, I remember seeing him in interviews back when he was just about to leave In Sync. It was right before he started to record Justified, and I remember turning to my wife and saying, ‘I think I’m supposed to work with Justin Timberlake’ and she’s like ‘Really, why?’ And I was like, you know, he’s up in Millington and I think I really want to try to rep my region. I mean that’s why David Banner is in my movie. How many LA movies are there with LA rappers. There’s no Southern movies with Southern rappers until I came around. And so I believe in just pulling all the artists together from my region. And the more that I talked with Justin, the more I realized that he was the only person that I could really go to on this. You know, we both have really thick Southern families, and we’ve always been kind of like dealing with the fact of how far do you run away from your own heritage and your own Southern background.

But we knew characters like Ronnie. We knew young men who had been pushed into very aggressive masculine roles by their family, having uncles and fathers smacking them around and calling them sissies or faggots just to make them harder. And they’re not equipped for it, they’re not like that, they’re not necessarily killers to go into war, and I’ve seen it destroy men. I’ve seen it just make them crumble and break inside, and Justin had observed that with people in his life. Justin’s a very confident young man, I mean, almost wise beyond his years in a spooky way. I think it’s a testament to Justin that he’s taking this route with his career. You really could do kind of like a big tent pole production with him singing and dancing as the lead above the title, but he’s choosing these roles where he’s a supporting character and surrounding himself with really good actors. Also, he’s made three movies, I’ve made three movies. We’re starting off, and I like that we’re young and fresh and trying something knew. I guarantee you there’s going to be a time, like five to ten years from now, Justin’s going to be a movie star.

So you were impressed with his acting?

Craig Brewer: I was. This is not an easy supporting role to play, especially to be that vulnerable.