Ice Cube Reveals Why He Turned Down 2Pac’s Role in ‘Poetic Justice’ and O-Dog in ‘Menace II Society’

Ice Cube is known for his success in film and is currently kicking off the 4th season of his BIG3 basketball league this July. During a new interview with Big Boy, he explained why he turned down the notable role that 2Pac played alongside Janet Jackson, Regina King, and Joe Torry.

On Big Boy’s Neighborhood, Ice Cube talked about the BIG3 League, his film career. Towards the end of the interview, Ice Cube surprisingly revealed that he turned down the role to play Larry “Lucky” Knight in Poetic Justice, the film released in 1993, directed by the late John Singleton.

Cube started by stating, “I turned down the 2Pac role in Poetic Justice,” at the 48:55 mark of the interview, “[Director John Singleton] hit me up, he was gonna give me pay, too.” Singleton didn’t give Cube the script to look over for a while. When Cube was finally given the script, he didn’t agree with one particular scene. “He didn’t wanna change it, so I didn’t wanna do it,” he said. “The problem was, me playing 2Pac, I don’t think I’d kick my homeboy out the car for a girl I just met when we got to Oakland. I didn’t think that was cool. It kinda made the character a sucker to me.”

He was “tempted” to do the film because of Janet Jackson playing a lead role, but he said he “wanted to love the movies” he was a part of. “I’m glad 2Pac did it; I think he killed it,” he said while revealing another major role he declined playing in. “I was asked to come in and talk about O-Dog, about being O-Dog in Menace [*II Society],” he said. “But I didn’t want to be typecast.” He thinks Larenz Tate did a phenomenal job playing the role of Kevin “O-Dog” Anderson.

Also, during the interview, he discussed the late director John Singleton helping him with his first film and shared one of his major regrets as an actor. “You know, I’m not a fan of… Uh, what’s that dumb movie I did with Woody Harrelson,” he said around the 43:00 mark and clarified that it was the 2011’s movie Rampart. “It didn’t come nothing like the script, or nothing like the director said it would. It’s like the director fell in love with Woody Harrelson and made the bad guy the good guy.” Big Boy added, “I don’t even remember that movie,” Cube replied, “Good.”

Watch Big Boy’s full interview with Ice Cube below.