Director F. Gary Gray, who has helmed movies like Friday, The Italian Job and Be Cool, is currently casting five actors to portray the members of N.W.A for his biopic, Straight Outta Compton. A reporter for KCRW recently caught up with him at one of the castings, which have so far been held in Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Gardena, California, to discuss what he has in mind for the film.
Most important, Gray wants to make a movie that solidifies the band’s cultural importance. “It’s not unlike Social Network or American Graffiti where you take a place and time in America, especially as it relates to popular culture, and you see the shift, and they were right there and created part of the pivot that America took in entertainment,” he said. “We went from Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince to hip-hop, and this is the time that marks that shift and that era.”
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