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HOW MUCH OF A
DRUDGE WAS IT?
Terence Winter: It wasn’t a
drudge at all. It was fascinating. I
just needed to get comfortable putting
words in 50’s mouth so that took
probably about 8 or 9 months of hanging
out with him, hours upon hours of
interviewing him. I went on tour with
him for a couple of weeks and did
extensive research into hip hop culture,
drug culture, gangster culture, and
finally got to the point where I could
start hearing his voice in my head and
comfortably started writing.
HOW DID YOU GET
INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT?
Terrence Winter: I came on
board … this sort of happened right
before the album Get Rich or Die Tryin’
came out. I had heard of him. I was
aware of a rapper named 50 Cent but I
really hadn’t heard his music. Jimmy
Iovine from Interscope called my agent
and said he wanted to have breakfast
with me to talk about doing a hip hop
project. I thought he had to be
confusing me with someone else because
you don’t exactly think of men when you
think of hip hop. You know, you gotta
get Terry Winter. He was very familiar
with my work on “The Sopranos” and he
said, “Look, a gangster is a gangster
and you write those well.” He said he
wanted me to hear 50 Cent. He sends me
some DVDs, there’s an underground DVD of
50 and he sent me a copy of Get Rich or
Die Trying which I loved, but I still
said “I don’t think I’m the right guy
for this.” He said “you are the right
guy; you just don’t know it yet. I’m
gonna show you that you’re the right
guy.” This went on for probably about a
month and finally the more I learned
about 50’s life and how it really laid
out into a movie; I just sort of became
seduced by the whole thing and thought,
“this is great.” And as soon as I agreed
to do it, I said to myself, “Oh my God,
why did you agree to do it? You can’t
write for this guy. You don’t know
anything about this guy.” It was sort of
a writer’s remorse. 50 Cent couldn’t
have been more generous with his time.
He told me to call him whenever I
wanted. I met him in LA at the Violator
offices. I went on tour with him for
three weeks.
I NOTICED MANY
PARALLELS TO “THE GODFATHER” LIKE WHEN
50 WAS SHOT NINE TIME LIKE MARLON BRANDO
WAS SHOT IN THE STREET, THE WHOLE SCENE
WITH 50 COMING HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL …
MARLON WAS ON A STRETCHER AND 50 WAS ON
CRUTCHES, WHEN HE WAS BETRAYED BY HIS
BEST FRIEND LIKE TESSIO WAS IN “THE
GODFATHER.” WAS THIS INTENTIONAL AND HOW
MUCH DID “THE GODFATHER” INFLUENCE THIS
STORY?
Terence Winter: Not
consciously certainly but I’ve seen that
movie a million times maybe so I’m sure
it’s part of my DNA at this point. None
of that was intentional. I think it just
laid out that way. But no, not really.
It actually never occurred to me. I
thought you were going to say Bill Duke
because he has that Marlon Brando thing
going on but I’m assuming that was just
his choice as an actor. Oh my God, it’s
like homage to Brando and “The
Godfather.” But no, that never really
occurred to me until you just said it.
Did 50 critiscize your coming on board
and writing the story?
Terence Winter: He never did.
When I gave him the first draft, you
know, he didn’t really have much
experience. I don’t know if he had ever
read a script before actually … he may
have. We talked about the story and I
just absorbed as much as I could. I
never even really gave him an outline. I
think the first thing he actually saw
was my first draft. I sent him a note
with it saying “This is going to be
really difficult because it’s you but
it’s sort of like an alternative
universe version of your life and I
don’t know what that could be like to a
person if someone would fictionalize
their life.” And he read it and loved
it. He thought it was great. He totally
got that this isn’t him, it’s not
exactly based on his life but he
understood that in telling a story you
have to take dramatic license to get a
point across … so the characters have to
be combined and things like that. He was
great. Totally professional.
How did you go from law to writing?
Terence Winter: I sort of
became an attorney because I didn’t know
what else to do. I grew up in Brooklyn (
Sheepshead Bay) and I wanted to make a
lot of money. And I said, “Oh well, a
doctor or a lawyer?” So I decided to be
a lawyer. That was the extent of my
research and I just hated it. It just
really wasn’t’ for me. If you grow up on
the east coast, being a writer,
certainly a Hollywood writer is not even
in your universe. So how do you do that?
So it took until my late 20’s to even
know anything about that. Then it sort
of struck me that that’s what I wanted
to do so I packed up and moved to LA.
Was there anything that didn’t make the
cut?
Terence Winter: There were a
couple of times … stories 50 told me
over the course of our interviews that I
thought best not to have happen. He’s
also smart enough not to incriminate
himself.
HE NEVER
ACTUALLY KILLS ANYONE.
Terence Winter: No. If there
was an area he was not comfortable with
he would say he didn’t want to talk
about that. Having lawyers and working
on a television series you’re always
being conscious that the legal
department will call and say you can’t
say that or use that product. So that
was always in the back of my mind.
ABOUT THE
SHOWER SCENE … DID THAT REALLY HAPPEN IN
REAL LIFE AND WAS WHAT YOU WROTE ON THE
PAGE WHAT WE SAW ON THE SCREEN?
Terence Winter: No. It wasn’t
based on anything real. That scene was
sort of constructed to introduce the
character of Bama and start their
friendship. In my first draft that scene
took place in the prison exercise yard
and it was while 50 was doing push-ups.
Ok. So what was the fascination for Jim
to have a shower scene?
Terence Winter: I’m not going
to question his motives. A bunch of guys
naked in the shower. That’s his
business. I’m very open-minded. It
certainly made him much more vulnerable
and horrific and it does make you
cringe, not that they’re naked but
because they’re so vulnerable and the
blades. That in my opinion knocked it up
about 50 percent. That’s something you
see in the exercise yard all the time.
So he was actually correct in setting it
inside the shower. Whatever puts asses
in the seats.
THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN WRITING FOR FILM VS. TV
Terence Winter: The lack of
control I think as a writer. TV is
generally more a writer’s medium … it’s
much more dialogue driven. You don’t
have the ability, by virtue of what it
is, of doing things in a feature film
that you do on TV because it’s less of a
visual medium. The director really is
the final arbiter of what is going to
get on that screen so you just need to
learn how to turn over control and know
that when you hand in the script, that
is now becomes a Jim Sheridan film and
it’s going to be Jim’s vision, and, it
might not be in line with my vision. TV
is much more a writer’s medium in the
sense that usually what’s written is
what’s shown. For example, if you were
reading a “Sopranos” script you’d see
that they are verbatim what you see on
the screen.
WERE YOU EVER
CONCERNED FOR YOUR PERSONAL SAFETY GIVEN
THE VIOLENT NATURE OF GANGSTA RAP?
Terence Winter: I’ve gotten
to know him pretty well. I’m always
concerned for him now because of the
stuff that’s happened. It’s funny;
people ask me about that gangster stuff,
“is that real?” yeah it’s real. You
think he shot himself nine times? Tupac
is actually dead. These guys really do
shoot each other. Yeah it’s real. It’s
unnerving. You know when I first met him
there were about 8 football players
around 50. This is serious. He needs to
be protected. But I never felt afraid
for my own life.
Who did you enjoy writing about the
most?
Terence Winter: 50 was the
character I was most interested in. I
guess Bama … a guy who is sort of
unhinged. You can kind of go anywhere
with him. 50, you sort of understand
what drives this guy. It was really
fascinating to explore that but crazy
people like Bama are just that more
interesting.
Was BAMA A REAL PERSON IN 50’S
LIFE OR A CHARACTER YOU MADE UP FOR THE
FILM?
Terence Winter: That was the
logic of Jim. He added that in and I
thought it was great and it was
hilarious. It was based on a real guy 50
grew up with. I don’t remember the guy’s
name. HE came in from down South into
the neighborhood. He was fiercely loyal,
a little wild.
DID YOU HAVE
TERRENCE IN MIND WHEN YOU WROTE THE BAMA
CHARACTER?
Terence Winter: I could not
get an actor in my head when I was
writing that. Usually you cast a role in
your head and you write for a certain
person. That was a role for some reason
I couldn’t come up with an actor for. I
wrote it as a fictional guy and when
Terrence was cast, I said, “Oh my God,
this is perfect!”
WHICH CAME
FIRST, THE BOOK OR THE MOVIE?
Terence Winter: It was a foot
race between me and Chris. We were
interviewing him at the same time. I
think I probably had a first draft of
the script before he actually had the
first galleys of the book done. He had a
much more difficult time in the sense he
was researching 50’s whole life but it
was factual. The amount of people 50
knows is amazing and just unraveling it
in a cohesive fashion was an enormous
challenge for Chris, I think. So based
on it I just got the gist of things and
then went off and told a fictional tale.
If you listen to some of the tapes … who
said what to who … and you try to piece
that all together, it’s a challenge.
Occasionally we’d do simultaneous
interviews … it was the same information
… we just decided to combine forces
rather than have 50 try to explain the
same thing two times in a row. As much
as possible we’d all try to get together
at the same time.
What do you think of 50 and his life
story, personally?
Terence Winter: I think he
started out as a nice person. I think he
was a nice person in the beginning who
was just thrust into a very difficult
situation. I’ve said this many times
before … If he was born in a different
time and place, he’d be running a
Fortune 500 company. He’s brilliant,
he’s charming, and he’s funny and warm.
He grew up in an environment where he
had to become tough and he’s got a
really sensitive side. He’s an artist.
The guy is a poet, really. But he’s a
poet who was dropped into a really tough
place and he decided it was either sink
or swim … be tough or get eaten alive.
And he became tough. And I think now by
virtue of his success he’s allowed to be
the poet again. The guy you see is the
real guy. He can turn into the other guy
pretty quickly but he doesn’t need do
and hopefully, he never will.
HOW DIFFICULT
WAS IT TO WRITE THE “N” WORD?
Terence Winter: Fuck no.
(laughs) No, it’s just sort of part of
the speech pattern. It would have been
phony not to write it. I’ve put curse
words together in more combinations that
you won’t believe how you can put the
word “douche bag” into a sentence. I had
to turn spell check off my computer.
“Fuck” is like a macro on my computer.
So no, I’m pretty comfortable with it.
ARE YOU
CONCERNED ABOUT ANY BACKLASH?
Terence Winter: I hadn’t
really thought about it. It’s just an
accurate depiction of how guys in that
culture talk to each other. People have
become desensitized to it because it’s
so over used. It’s used in so many ways
less than a slur... more a familiarity
with each other. So I don’t know but I’d
be surprised if there was a backlash
cause it’s become so … the overuse of
the “N” word has taken some of its power
away.
ANY BROAD
THEMES YOU WERE TRYING TO PRESENT?
Terence Winter: Redemption.
The fact that he has a choice. Just
because you’re born into a situation
doesn’t mean you’re condemned to stay
there.
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