- Hey, I'm 50 Cent and I'm in the studio
with The Hollywood Reporter, keep it locked right here.
(upbeat music)
- Thanks so much for stopping by.
- Thanks for having me.
- Yeah, I really wanna talk about that little explosive show
that you executive produce.
Season six, final season, and I say quotes
because you're about to tell me more about that.
- Yeah, it's the final season of "Power Book I."
And then "Power Book II" starts 48 hours later.
- When did that come into play, was that always the plan?
- Well, not the title of "Power Book II."
It just does not make sense to even market
or promote the idea of it ending when it's growing so fast.
Like this year, the first episode of "Power"
came in 40% over its last season's viewership.
So the show is still growing, so there's no reason
for you to say that it's gonna end 'cause it's not.
- And that's very rare where a show on television--
- Is continuing to grow like that, yeah.
- Is not only retaining its viewership, but growing.
- Yeah, look, there's a large portion of the audience
that watches their television on a phone,
on an eight-inch screen, Millennials is there,
they're doing that.
I looked at them like they're the nightclub going--
- [Laela] Yeah.
- The younger person that's actually getting into it.
And then it's cool, you got the demographic
that I feel like is my core demo,
that is committed to things.
- What do you think is, you know,
looking at the TV landscape, what's missing out there?
- Well, a lot of, they haven't seen a lot of characters,
Latino, African American characters in the lead,
to play these big shows like this,
so it's cool, the "Powers," did,
"Empire" had a huge success following that.
And it's a lot, it opens the minds and ideas of people
in programming to let the people
of other ethnicities lead the show.
- Right, looking at this specific chapter of "Power,"
this is where all the magic started.
Was it sad to say goodbye to this chapter?
- Well, not sad, it was exciting
to see people be so invested.
Like I invested early on.
- [Laela] Right.
- Like I kinda got the whole network pregnant with my idea
because I didn't cost anything for them in the beginning,
I was getting what, like $17,000 per episode.
I get paid more to go to a nightclub and do one of these.
You know what I'm saying?
So really I was paying to be a part of the project.
And I just didn't wanna even approach them about it
until I got it to a point where you can clearly see
the success and that they would need to support it.
- What did you learn about yourself creatively
since you were an executive producer on the show?
- I learned that
I can kinda channel myself better,
'cause when I first started, even though
I was an executive producing the show,
I was focusing on the Kanan character,
just my piece with that, and then when I directed it,
I had to focus on all 31 scenes and everybody's performance,
so it was a whole different perspective
to look at things from.
And I feel it's, look, none of this stuff
is difficult to me anymore.
- That's great. - I only have to do it
a little bit until I get an understanding of what I'm doing
and then I can do it.
- I'm like 50 Scorsese out here.
- When did you start wrapping your head around directing?
Was that after your character was killed off,
or is that something that you always wanted to do?
- You know, after is when we immediately started
doing things, and I looked at
things that I saw in feature films that I really appreciated
that I wanted to be in my episode.
And I talked to Courtney about those things,
and it kinda fell into, it's like three big set pieces
in my episode, you know, I mean,
it's the shootout when you come in.
So it feels like me because it immediately
gets to the shooting.
Everybody, the action comes in like,
this is the cheapest thing you can do in a film
for action is to fire a squid, to fire a blank
and have the squid go off like somebody was hit.
Very cheap.
(Laela laughs)
Intense because it's life threatening, but very cheap.
- (laughs) Financial tips from 50 Cent,
that's what's happening right here.
You have your hand in a lot of different ventures.
Where do you get your drive from?
- Oh, I'm crazy.
When you come from,
like the circumstances I come up under, it forces me to,
either you gonna live with an entrepreneur spirit,
and I have to understand that it's a tunnel
that doesn't end, so the person that I hang out with
has to be willing to go on that journey with me.
'Cause you'll look at my accounts and you'll go,
"Why are you getting up?"
I'm saying, "'Cause I gotta go to work."
And you're going, "Why are you getting up?
"'Cause the money's there so there's really no reason
"for you to actually have to go today."
But I have to go.
- You just signed a massive overall deal with STARZ.
What other stories do you have
up your sleeve beyond "Power?"
- Oh, man, I got a bunch of stuff.
I got a new show, it's set to premiere February 23rd on ABC.
- [Laela] Okay, tell us about that.
- Isaac Wright, well it's called "For Life,"
it's loosely based on Issac Wright Jr.'s life story.
And he was sentenced to 70 years plus life in New Jersey.
He was the first person convicted under the kingpin statute.
And wrongfully convicted, it's a wild story.
The district attorney ends up killing himself,
the arresting officer came clean and told the truth
about what was happening, it was just nuts.
But it's like one in how many people
under those circumstances, you know?
There's a lot of people in jail
that were wrongfully convicted.
- Yeah, I want to ask you about your music as well.
You recently released a song with Ed Sheeran and Eminem.
- Yeah, that was cool.
- That surprised a lot of people.
How do you choose what projects
and collaborations to be apart of?
- You know what, that one just happened,
like it just fell, we was,
Em's last album's coming out,
I was a guest on his last tour.
And the last two shows were in London,
and I went out and it was like 80,000 people each night.
Ed popped in the second night.
And he was like, "Yo, we gotta do something."
And he was like, 'cause Em and Ed
were talking about working together.
And then I just was there and he was like,
"Yeah, we should do it together, like all of us."
And Em was like, "What the fuck,
"what the fuck is going on?
"It's supposed to be me and you, fool,
"why'd you put 50 on the record?"
Then we all ended up on the song.
It came out, it was a good record.
It was number one for a little while.
And then I got another record from Em he sent me
for his new album, and then Ozuna, a Latin artist,
sent me a record, so I'm working with him.
- Since you broke in the entertainment industry
as a rapper, where does music fit into your career plans
moving forward since it sounds like
you're gonna be extremely busy?
- No, you know what, I'm so conditioned for music.
I been writing music since '97,
I don't really need to stop to do it.
I can write on a plane, I can write wherever I'm going.
That's how I did my first three albums,
'cause I never really stopped touring.
So we did it moving.
- [Laela] Right.
- The film and television thing,
it supports me being able to be influential
for a longer period of time.
Hip-hop is youth connected.
They have a lower attention span.
You're gonna have to see way more artists
come and have one hit and disappear now
because of how we're consuming music.
They meet the audience before they meet the record companies
and because they're not getting bumped around
as much as we was getting bumped around
before you got your shot,
they're gonna take off and be on the road running around
and having the time of their life
before they're preconditioned to write music.
And then when they come back and slow down,
they're not gonna be able to write a hit record
to save their life.
- To bring it all back, give us your best tease
for the rest of the season of "Power."
- Oh, it's gonna be intense, man.
You gotta buckle up and prepare for the ride.
It's a rollercoaster.
Look, there's so many different cool moments in it
that I think,
okay, I'll tell you the truth, I think my episode
is the best, I think I'm the best,
I think I'm 50 Scorsese.
I think I'm (exhales), I'm winning, baby,
all the way right now.
(Laela laughs)
But there's another episode coming next week.
- Well, we are so excited.
We can't wait to see how this season ends.
Be sure to catch "Power" on STARZ this Sunday.
If you're not tuning in, where the heck are you?
- Yeah, I'm hot, I'm hot.
If you don't know I'm hot, something's wrong with you.
You know the STARZ Network, they know I'm hot.
You know why, because the STARZ Network goes up in ratings,
the STARZ app goes up in ratings every time I do something.
I'm not even in there, I died, they thought it would
go down, it went up 'cause I directed.