Why Ice-T once got “popped” by Denzel Washington
West Coast emcee Ice-T has been acting for longer than he was rapping and has had a highly successful career as a TV and Hollywood star. The former lyricist has collaborated with several actors in his long career. Still, one of the most well-known figures he has worked with is the revered Denzel Washington.
Ice-T never thought he would reach the heights he has in Hollywood; he just experimented with acting in the early 1990s. The Rhyme Pays creator played police officer Scotty Appleton in the 1991 cult classic New Jack City. That said, he didn’t even audition for the role.
In an interview with Props, Ice-T once explained, “I got into acting kinda funny. I was in a club with some girl models when Mario Van Peebles walked over to me. He said, ‘I want you to be in a movie,’ and I was thinking, ‘Yeah right, you just wanna get down [with the girls]’ The next day, I got a phone call from him, and he told me to come and read for a movie called New Jack City. I went over there, and they told me I was gonna wear dreads and play a cop.”
Ice-T wasn’t keen on filming the movie, but it boosted his self-esteem. Unveiling the reception he got after the film’s release, the emcee continued, “After I did it, I got mad love, and it gave me confidence. That’s when I really knew that people will always judge you for what you do, but as long as you do it well, ain’t nobody’s gonna be mad at you. I’ve never read for a movie. I’ve always been given them,”
Still, following New Jack City, the rapper was invited to appear in the 1991 feature Ricochet alongside Denzel Washington. The movie saw Ice-T playing a drug dealer, but the LA lyricist was starstruck by Washington.
Speaking to NPR, he explained, “You know, I’m a rapper, so I wasn’t so star-struck with other emcees or musicians, but this was Denzel Washington. This is like my second movie.”
What really left Ice-T flustered was how seriously Washington took his craft and how dedicated he was to getting his co-stars to fall in line. Disclosing his experience on set, Ice-T recalled, “Denzel would sit there and play with me and, you know, tell jokes. And then, when they say action, he would snap into character. And he did it so fast that I couldn’t say my lines, and he reached over the table. He popped me in the face. He said, ‘Come on, Ice. Come on, baby. Let’s do this,’ you know?”
The rapper insisted he regularly got popped by Denzel when he forgot his lines but asserted that it was all out of love as they wanted to give the best performance possible.