Dope is screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival.
Dope is screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival.
Meet the cast of 90s punk/hip-hop caper comedy Dope.
With music by Pharrell Williams and a cast with plenty of music business connections, Dope is the funkiest movie at the festival.
It's also a 90s flashback of a film with director Rick Famuyiwa drawing on his own teenage life in a Los Angeles fringed by gang culture.
His story of three straight kids - Malcolm (Shameik Moore), Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) and Jib (Tony Revolori) - getting involved in a deal over $100,000 worth of Ecstasy - is no gangsta movie, though.
Malcolm is a straight-A student trying to get into Harvard, who has a thing for "white people's shit" like skateboarding, BMX bikes, Manga comics and fronts a punk band, Oreo, with his geek mates.
The film's young ensemble of unknowns and familiar faces also feels like the start of something for the actors - and one notable rapper - involved.
Here's what the cast had to say about themselves and their involvement in the film:
Shameik Moore (20)
You haven't heard of him yet but you will. Soon to appear in Baz Luhrmann's new Netflix music series, The Get Down, Moore beams with confidence, though he bombed his first Dope audition. But Famuyiwa had already gleaned his natural ability to balance the comedy and drama and pull off an outrageous 90s flat-top while singing, rapping and dancing.
Shameik Moore in Dope.
"I felt like it was written for me and what I can do," Moore says. "I was thankful for a second chance. You know, people don't get those in this world."
He learned his lesson and had no such problem with Luhrmann. The Get Down, he explains, "is about the origins of hip-hop in the 70s, when disco was really popular and hip-hop was called the get down. It's about capturing that moment, the gang violence, all the lifestyle."
Tony Revolori (19)
Tony Revolori, right, in a scene from Dope.
Even if he impressed in his starring role as an Indian bellhop in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, Revolori, born Anthony Quinonez, doesn't have a drop of Indian blood.
"I'm an Hispanic native American Jewish Italian," he explains, talking at a million miles an hour. He naturally identified with Dope's theme.
"It's about how we perceive people and how we categorise them, but in a lighthearted way. Jib pretty much is one-goal oriented around sex. I think that's relatable to all humankind."
A self-confessed geek, Revolori has been acting since the age of 2.
Kiersey Clemons (21)
Kiersey Clemons, centre, in a scene from Dope.
The leggy beauty went from a stint as a model to a successful role in Dope, in which she plays the lesbian drummer in Oreo. "I auditioned for the part after reading lines with my male roommate and watching his gestures. I think my short hair helped. I used to have an Afro and, with modelling, they have this idea of like, 'We need one brown girl with curly hair'. So I got lucky, I guess. Then, after modelling I chopped it off. I did modelling because I grew up in the recession and we ended up poor. I did plays when I was young and acting was all I wanted to do."
Now she's recording music and her vocals can be heard on tracks not only in Dope, but in her Amazon series Transparent.
Zoe Kravitz and AA$P Rocky (both 26):
Zoe Kravitz in Dope.
The daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet was last seen in Mad Max: Fury Road. When TimeOut encounters the cast, Kravitz is paired with her friend of four years, hip-hop star AA$P Rocky. As is often the case, Rocky admits he is stoned, though qualifies this by adding, "I smoke a lot of marijuana, but crack and meth, they suck".
A newcomer to movies, the outspoken Harlem-raised rapper is the only cast member who comes from poverty and sold drugs as he does in the film.
"Most rappers sold drugs at some part of their lives," he says. "I hate to be so cliched but that's the way my story goes and, moving forward, I don't want to do any more roles as a drug dealer or a rapper or a handsome guy!"
Kravitz : "Maybe you should put a bag over your head."
Rocky: "Yeah, that's what I say."
Kravitz: "What's interesting about Rocky is that he continues to surprise people because we look at him as a rapper and categorise whatever that means - and then he says or does or wears something or makes something that is unexpected. His character, Dom, is so like that, too."
Quincy Brown (24)
Also known as Quincy Combs, the stepson of hip-hop mogul Sean Combs and the son of supermodel Kim Porter has a lot to live up to, especially given he's also the biological son of singer Al B Sure! and the godson of music legend Quincy Jones. Tall and with a broad smile, he plays a rich kid with his own music studio in Dope.
"I kind of lived the fast life growing up in a similar way to my character," he admits. "Not so much being the gangster-type guy but definitely the music being in my life and taking that on as a hobby."
When sometime-actor Puff Daddy heard about the film he threw in some financing to become an executive producer. "He told me acting is never about trying to do too much," says Brown. "It's better relaxing on camera."
