Friday, March 29, 2024

Eminem Mourns Death of ‘8 Mile’ Director Curtis Hanson at 71: He ‘Believed in Me’

Eminem and Curtis Hanson on the set of "8 Mile"
Eminem and Curtis Hanson on the set of “8 Mile”

*Eminem has released a statement on the death of Curtis Hanson — the director of his 2002 semi-autobiographical film “8 Mile” — who died Tuesday at the age of 71.

“Curtis Hanson believed in me and our crazy idea to make a rap battle movie set in Detroit. He basically made me into an actor for 8 Mile. I’m lucky I got to know him,” Eminem said in a statement to Billboard.

Hanson died of “natural causes” and was declared dead by paramedics late Tuesday afternoon at his Hollywood Hills home, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

The filmmaker won a screenwriting Oscar for “L.A. Confidential” and directed the psychological thriller “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.”

On working with Eminem in a 2002 interview with Rolling Stone, Hanson said: “I knew going into it that he had experience performing and also adopting a character, Slim Shady. What I was looking for was actually the opposite of that. When you adopt a characterization, that’s artificial. You hide behind that. What I needed in this story was the appearance of a complete lack of artifice. I needed the appearance of one more or less exposing himself emotionally.

“And, so in my getting to know him, I had to assess and then make an educated guess of whether he would be able to do to that and whether he would trust me and the environment I would create enough to do that.”

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