50 Cent Goes To The Movies

Curtis Jackson a.k.a 50 cent has lived on the streets, has been through the worst of nightmares, he knows what pain is after been shot nine times during an attempted murder, sold drugs and lost his mother to it. And to say the least his debut album turned the tide of fortune in his favor. Get rich or Die Tryin’ debuted at No. 1 and sold 7.3 million copies. The former crack dealer has built a hot rap career and spawned several product lines. This month, he diversifies his portfolio with a movie, a video game, a soundtrack CD, a new sneaker and wristwatches.

Get Rich or Die Tryin', which is due to open in the US on 9 November, stars Jackson - as a drug dealer who turns his back on crime to pursue his true passion, rap music. Jackson admits at doing an Eminem with his life by putting it all in the movie, so that everyone knows what all he has been through.

The hard-core rapper got started when Eminem signed him to a seven-figure deal in 2002 and made him one of the most talked-about figures in the history of the music industry. He knows his popularity and boasts "You can spin the globe and wherever you stop, I can go there and sell out a show."

In "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," opening Wednesday, he plays himself and it's quite a life story. He grew up on the rough streets of Jamaica, Queens, where his mother was a drug dealer and his father was non-existent. When his mother is brutally burned alive, the young boy in the film becomes a dealer in order to survive and buy himself new sneakers. And what impressed director Jim Sheridan was 50’s courage to get back to life. "To me, 50 Cent is a black gangsta Jesus with the wounds to prove it," Sheridan says

 Talking of what his experience was while shooting the movie about his own life 50 says

"It was very emotional for me to act out the scene where I'm shot and left for dead," 50 Cent says. "But at least it wasn't a hard acting exercise. I'm someone who knows what it's like to lay in the middle of the street in a pool of blood. I know what it's like to be shot in the face. I know." He wants to clear up one thing though, that even though he was in a movie about his own life he still had to act to deliver the dialogues like other people, he says  ‘because I was making a film about my life that I wasn't really acting. I still had to deliver the dialogue like everyone else in the scene. Of course, I do have an advantage. I know how I was feeling at a specific time.’

"At the end of the movie people will wonder: Is this the real 50 Cent? Has he changed? Is he acting a part? All three are true," Sheridan said.

Though he got rich and almost died trying, 50 acknowledged that life will always be an uphill climb.

"For me, when you grow up without finances, finances seem like the answer to all of your problems," he said. "It's not until you acquire finances that you realize that there is always more obstacles."