Director Ernest Dickerson celebrated the 30th anniversary of the New York-based classic Juice, released on Jan. 17, 1992. In a recent interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Dickerson opened up about the process of writing the film and rapper Tupac’s memorable performance in the 90s flick.
Before Dickerson made his directorial debut, he was the director of photography in classic films, including Spike Lee’s 1986’s hit, She’s Gotta Have It, 1989’s Do the Right Thing, and 1992’s Malcolm X. He co-wrote Juice with partner Gerard Brown. The story was about four male teenagers from Harlem whose lives spiral out of control after holding up a bodega in the 1980s.
“The script was written nine years before we were actually able to make the movie,” Dickerson, 70, said in the interview promoting the film’s new 4K Ultra HD release. “It sat on the shelf for nine years. It was written in the early ’80s after I just got out of film school at NYU. And nobody wanted to touch it. They said, ‘Nobody wants to see this movie.'”
While Dickerson established his career as a cinematographer and Brown was a writer-in-residence at the Public Theater in New York, a new agent shopped the Juice script before being sold to Paramount.
The writers began to search for actors to fill the roles of Q, Raheem, Steel and Bishop, the four teens who grew tired from the police harassment, and a Puerto Rican gang conspired to rob a corner store in hopes of gaining respect in the streets. However, the robbery turns deadly when Bishop shoots and kills the store owner.
The director desperately searched for young Black actors in the Tristate area to bring the film to life, looking in performing arts schools and church and neighborhood theater groups. “It was a long, painful process,” says Dickerson, whose casting director narrowed hundreds of candidates down to 10 or 12 actors they “mixed and matched.”
Eventually, the roles were filled by Black actors who later starred and appeared in other well-known projects. Omar Epps was cast as “Q,” an upcoming DJ reluctant to enter into a life of crime, Khalil Kain as Raheem, and Jermaine “Huggy” Hopkins as the portly Steel. Finding someone to portray the hot-headed Bishop was a dedicated process.
Anthony Criss, aka Treach from the iconic 90s rap group Naughty by Nature, initially auditioned for the role as Bishop, and his friend, up-and-coming rapper Tupac Shakur tagged along. Dickerson asked Shakur to audition and was reportedly blown away by his performance. The rapper landed the infamous role of Bishop in the film.
Shakur’s performance in the film is what most people remember the most while looking back on how Bishop treated his friends after the store owner’s killing.
“We found out later that Tupac trained as an actor in the high school [at the Baltimore School for the Arts],” Dickerson said. “And the thing that he knew about Bishop is that all of the bravado, the anger, came from pain, and that’s what he put into his auditions. And that’s what he put into the character.”
The film director said Shakur was a person who took everything seriously during his time filming on set.
“You know, there were a couple times that he got into trouble,” Dickerson admitted. “But the great thing about Tupac was that he was really interested in people. In Harlem, if he saw somebody that looked like they were going through something, or there was something different about them, he would talk to them. He would spend a lot of time talking with people. Tupac was a great student of human nature.”
There was another time Tupac was hitting on a woman who it turned was one of the trans subjects of Paris Is Burning. Pac laughed it all off after finding out. pic.twitter.com/fOM3dhGoYH
— Kevin Polowy (@djkevlar) January 15, 2022
Despite the “All Eyez On Me” rapper’s minor run-ins while filming the movie, he left a long-lasting impression as Bishop. His budding acting career landed him roles in other films, including Poetic Justice, Above the Rim, Gang Related and Menace II Society.
