Anthony Mackie may be Captain America, but hip hop fans will already remember him as Papa Doc in 8 Mile. The actor had the unenviable task of going onstage and getting torched by Eminem during the final battle. It's a classic scene, and one that has been parodied countless times since. According to Mackie, however, Eminem's bars were no laughing matter. The actor told the Pivot Podcast that Eminem actually tailored his raps around his real life. The situation may have been fictional, but the disses weren't.
Anthony Mackie claimed the rapper cobbled together information about him during production. "We're doing the movie, and Eminem is just such a brilliant dude," the actor recalled. "We're on set one day, and he said 'Yo, I need something on you.'" Mackie claims they shared some details about their personal lives and hung out. Then, it was recycled and spit back out against him on the set. "Next day we're shooting the battle scene," Mackie explained. "And I'm like 'You talking about me you not talking about Clarence!" The actor jokingly called Eminem an "a*shole," conceding that it made his performance more realistic. "I'm like, 'I will fight this motherf*cker.'"
Anthony Mackie Rapping
8 Mile marked Anthony Mackie and Eminem's film debuts. It would go on to become a box office success and take home an Oscar for Best Original Song, so the behind the scenes prep obviously helped. Mackie claimed that he was initially concerned about being convincing as a battle rapper. He credited his history with stage acting, and studying Shakespeare, as an enormous help. "The idea of approaching a rapper from the perspective of an actor, you’re really just speaking in poems," he said on Hot Ones in 2021. "I always said, one of the greatest rappers ever lived was Shakespeare."
Mackie played another rapper in the 2009 film Notorious. He portrayed Tupac in the biopic, someone that cast a massive influence over Eminem's rhyming style. Em even handled production duties on the posthumous 'Pac album, Loyal to the Game, in 2004. Fortunately for Mackie, the beef between Tupac and Biggie in Notorious did not require him to be personally insulted again.
