Fame Is Easy, Acting Is Hard

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The agency enrolled Benjamin in a sitcom-acting class with people literally just off the bus from Kansas. He had no interest in sitcoms and found "a few of the exercises silly," but even while doing improv skits in his classmates' run-down apartments, Benjamin recognized that acting gave him a different kind of creative freedom. "As a [musician], I have a set image, and no one wants to see me sad or anything. But in acting, you're allowed to be whatever. You can be embarrassed. You get a chance to cry. People expect you to be real."

After taking advanced classes and getting a private drama coach, Benjamin went to auditions. They did not go well. Once, in front of a group of Fox executives, he got so frazzled that he couldn't stop sweating. "I was supposed to be playing this ultra-cool guy," Benjamin says. "I was supposed to have a cigarette. I was totally not that person. The people in the room pretended that nothing unusual was going on, but when it was over--I remember Lisa Bonet was out in the hallway waiting on her turn--I ran into the bathroom and looked at my face, and I looked like I just climbed out of a pool. I pray the people at Fox have honor, man. I beg them, Destroy that tape."

His discomfort with auditions, Benjamin believes, was caused by a sense that he had to accomplish too much in too little time. "First," he says, "I had to make people believe that I'm not Andre 3000. Then I had to make people believe that I am this character. It created a lot of nervous tension." Perhaps, but Benjamin happily allowed his agents to use his renown to get auditions, so he could hardly take offense at the parts he was reading for ("Andre 3000 knock-offs, basically") or the burden of being seen as just another rapper.

The noblest solution might have been to stop using his fame. The smartest was to use his fame differently. Benjamin asked his agents to cold-call directors he respected to find out whether they would be willing to have lunch. More often than not, they were. "You just sit down at Starbucks or the Chateau Marmont--a lot of directors like to meet there--and start talking," says Benjamin. "Paul Thomas Anderson and I were tripping for hours," he says, recalling his meeting with the director of Boogie Nights and Magnolia. The informal conversations covered a lot of different ground, but Benjamin always made a point of explaining that Andre 3000--the platinum blond superfreak put together from the spare parts of George Clinton, Rick James and Prince--is nothing like André Benjamin, the person named Esquire's best-dressed man in the world. "Andre 3000 is wild and crazy. He's got the energy of a little kid," says Benjamin. "I'm totally opposite from that, way more calm. I have friends that call me Turtle."

After one such meeting, Benjamin was offered his first role, a few scenes as Josh Hartnett's friend in Hollywood Homicide. "I knew when he walked in the room he had the energy and charisma to handle the part," says director Ron Shelton. Shelton is the rare director who seeks out rappers ("There's a freedom, a looseness and a respect for the text I like," he says), but Benjamin still exceeded his expectations. "André sent me a note after the movie, thanking me. Honestly, it might be the first note I ever got. I sent him one back saying, 'Thank you. I hope I have a bigger part for you someday.' He was really prepared, a true professional."