Canadian hip-hop artist Drake, who first rose to fame acting on the TV drama series “Degrassi,” is returning to his acting roots. He’s doing it, you might say, with extreme vetting.
Drake recently premiered his documentary, “The Carter Effect,” at the Toronto Film Festival. It’s about former NBA star Vince Carter. He’s also involved in reviving the 2013 cult British TV drama series, “Top Boy,” for Netflix, which tells the story of drug dealers doing business in the London projects. The show’s third season is scheduled to air in 2019, six years after it was canceled.
Drake is careful about who he works with, says his longtime manager and business partner, Adel “Future” Nur, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He looks for projects that resonate rather than big names.
Drake once turned down a chance to work with now-disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein:
“Weinstein chased Drake to star in and produce a film called ‘The Heist,’ but Drake rebuffed the overtures long before the mogul faced dozens of sexual harassment and assault claims. ‘I vetted him with five people and got bad feedback about working with him,’ Future says simply.'”
Drake isn’t the only hip-hop artist to make a foray into Hollywood. Jay Z and Weinstein are business partners. When news first broke of sexual harassment allegations against him, Weinstein likened his personal flaws to those of Jay-Z, who apologized on his most recent “$:44” album to his wife, Beyoncé, for cheating on her.
More than 50 women including Lupita Nyong’o have talked about their experiences with Weinstein. One Hollywood director told BuzzFeed News that Weinstein fired, Sophie Okonedo, his choice for lead actress, because he didn’t find her sexually attractive.
Many of Weinstein’s projects are now in limbo as more accusations come to light about his sexual assaults and predatory behavior.
In turning down the work, Drake and his manager exercised “genius judgment with Weinstein long before the world knew of his heinous deeds,” BET reported.
Drake is making his acting career a priority — more so than music, he said. He plans to take up to a year to work on acting in “great films”:
“My taste in TV or movies is always kind of similar to my approach to music, which is, I like when people really hit the nail on the head with real human emotions,” he told (Hollywood Reporter). “So with [Netflix’s] “Ozark,” it’s just the family dynamic. The arguments. The love. The struggles. I really relate to how accurate it is.”
https://twitter.com/cvseyjvy/status/928315729643999238
I’m 1000% here for Drake getting into films. Like yes, lay off the music for a while and get out here and acting like Justin Timberlake did
— JB (@JasSoSweeet) November 8, 2017
I would honestly love to see Drake drop his music career and go into acting full time.
— ExperienceVee (@ExperienceVee_) November 8, 2017
https://twitter.com/GustavoooAngel/status/928344465680551936
