50 Cent and Jake Gyllenhaal cover the new issue of Vibe and discuss their upcoming sports drama movie, Southpaw, which hits theatres on July 24.
50 Cent and Jake sat down with Vibe for an interview and revealed everything they endured throughout the filming process for their new movie.
50 Cent noted that Gyllenhaal's performance in the movie is worthy of an Academy Award, saying "I mean he deserves that conversation. When you get a chance to see the performance in the film, you'll understand the discipline is connected to Jake's performance in this joint."
Gyllenhaal had to prepare physically and mentally for months to get in character for this role. He confirms that he had been preparing for months prior to shooting. "Five months intensely. Before that, it was like a year talking about it. Then getting into it how we wanted to do it and then how we did it. It was like five months," he said.
The plot centers around a boxer who retires from the sport, but when tragedy strikes has to return to the intense world of professional boxing as a last hope. Gyllenhaal fills the shoes of the professional boxer, Billy "The Great" Hope, and 50 Cent plays the role of slick talking boxing promoter Jordan Mains. The film was directed by Antoine Fuqua, who was also the mastermind behind critically acclaimed films likeTraining Day and The Equalizer. Southpaw also stars Rachel McAdams, who plays Billy's wife Maureen Hope, and Forest Whitaker, who plays his trainer.
The film was supposed to feature Eminem as the lead role, but in the early stages of development he opted out of it. However, Eminem didn't cut ties with the project completely. He executive produced the movie's soundtrack and has already released the first single of the soundtrack, "Phenomenal."
Southpaw is a movie about perseverance, fearlessness, and tackling your obstacles head-on, which is something that attracted both 50 Cent and Gyllenhaal to the movie. Gyllenhaal said, "See, that's the thing, it's like we all have that inside of us.That's the thing about the character that I love. We all have a beast inside of us."
