"Interview" magazine has a great track record of getting two seemingly-unrelated celebrities to interview each other, and their latest issue has to be one of the all-time best. Actor Jonah Hill sits down with Action Bronson to talk food, music and film. Read some of the most interesting tidbits below.
HILL: So, three or four years ago, my buddy Dave Appleton, who is up on all hip-hop stuff before anyone knows about it, hips me to Bronson. This was before "Fuck, That's Delicious." He showed me some kind of YouTube show of you cooking with this very hip-hop dialect and extreme knowledge of the culinary arts. [Bronson laughs] I was already in, and then he started playing your music, and I was ... It was all I listened to for, like, three months straight. There's a lot one can say about you to someone who has no knowledge of you: born in Queens; Albanian; former chef. And that's how I pitch you to people who are stupid and don't know who you are. But then I go, "You got to see him to believe him." My work as a fan has been to just share the gospel with as many people as I could.
BRONSON: That's fucking incredible right there. That's quite an introduction.
HILL: I'm constantly trying to get you cast in movies. And I have to explain to these older white directors who you are. It's been a hilarious process so far.
BRONSON: Let's go. You know I'm ready.
...
HILL: I remember I was probably 23 when Ed Norton interviewed me for Interview—and he's one of my favorite actors and a friend of mine—but I was terrified because he's done so many great movies, and he's older than me. And as an actor—until you start writing and directing stuff—if you're doing good work, you're really lucky to be in the hands of the people you're working with. But as an MC, choosing the beats, designing your record, it's really coming from who you are. I can give everything I can to a film, but at the end of the day, if I'm not directing it, I'm just putting in a piece of the puzzle. And so for me to watch how you've grown, from "Barry Horowitz" and "Buddy Guy" [from Dr. Lecter], which are my two favorites—and actually, when I was making "Wolf of Wall Street," those were two of the songs that I listened to every day to get into character ...
BRONSON: Oh, man.
...
HILL: You're the Van Damme of Queens, man.
BRONSON: Yeah, the Van Damme, van Gogh of Queens. I'm a mix of Van Damme and van Gogh; that's going in the next rhyme. Oh, man. There's something wrong with me.
HILL: No! My point, my whole message that I wanted to express to you is that it's so easy to be influenced by the people you adore and who made you do what you want to do, and then there's that moment when you get to have the confidence to be your own artist. And I really see you heading there and it's so inspiring to watch.
BRONSON: Thank you, my brother. I really appreciate those words, man. That hit me right in the heart, right there. Ain't no stopping over here.
HILL: Yeah, dude. I told you, I went on a magical quest in the desert, and all I brought with me was "Easy Rider." [laughs]
BRONSON: Man, that right there is a spiritual moment, I'm not going to lie. When I would drive around and have moments ... You know a song is good when you drive over the bridge, and you're looking at the city, and the shit sounds ill, like, "Oh, hell yeah, it's like a video." That's how you know a song is good. And I had several moments with "Easy Rider." The craziest part about "Easy Rider" is that we took a fucking song off YouTube, made a new song out of it, put it back on YouTube, then got millions of views. That's a crazy thing.
HILL: Wow. It was a beat?
BRONSON: The beat, the rhythm. We sampled it, made it into a new song, put it right back on motherfucking YouTube, got millions of views, and generated money out of it, which is a crazy thing.
HILL: I want another trip to Flushing.
BRONSON: We over here! Let's do it.
Read the full interview here.
