Omar Epps Reveals Iconic Scene from ‘Juice’ With Tupac Shakur Was Improvised

Tupac Shakur was an actor to watch before his death in 1996. His role in Juice established him as one who could work with the best of them. As it turns out, he was so talented that he could improvise lines that even directors were impressed with. Omar Epps recently revealed that one of the scenes from the movie that fans love was completely improvised. 

Omar Epps reveals how Tupac Shakur improvised best scene from the movie

Epps’ first role was in the 1991 coming-of-age drama. Aside from the film catapulting it into becoming an in-demand actor and having a cult following, Epps says he learned the biggest lesson of his career from that experience.

“My forever best lesson was the experience of filming Juice, my first film,” Epps said in an interview, as reported by The Jasmine Brand. “The script for Juice was written ten years before we did it, so all of the verbiage and slang was way different. From dudes in the 80s and 70s, like ‘Hey sucka.’ We was like, ‘Nah.’”

Epps continued, noting that the cast were allowed to go off-script, which isn’t always something new actors are given the freedom to do. It birthed the most memorable moment from the film.

“Earnerst [Dickerson] (the director) was dope and he was just like, ‘you know what needs to be said, just say it the way you would say it.’ So we basically, me and Pac freestyled the whole movie,” he added. “So all of these great moments, even with Pac, the great locker moment and all that, this is off the top. One of us would sort of anchor it back to the beats, like ‘I’m gonna say this, and it’s like okay, yeah.’ That was great because it helped me improve my process of being in the moment and not being so rehearsed.”

Earnest Dickerson says Tupac Shakur was a standout in the film

Tupac was not initially on the radar for the role, or for the film at all. He caught the casting team’s attention when he accompanied his friend, Treach of Naughty by Nature, to the audition. 

“We found out later that Tupac trained as an actor in the high school [at the Baltimore School for the Arts],” Dickerson said in an interview with Yahoo in honor of the film’s 30th anniversary. “And the thing that he knew about Bishop is that all of the bravado, the anger, came from pain, and that’s what he put into his auditions. And that’s what he put into the character.”

Just like Bishop, Tupac had an intense spirit. He even caused some trouble. One person on the set joked that he’d be fired, which led to a physical fight. 

“You know, there were a couple times that he got into trouble,” Dickerson recalled. “But the great thing about Tupac was that he was really interested in people. In Harlem, if he saw somebody that looked like they were going through something, or there was something different about them, he would talk to them. He would spend a lot of time talking with people. Tupac was a great student of human nature.”

The rapper set his eyes on becoming a great actor

Tupac didn’t want the role to be his last. Before his death, he starred in five other roles and was lauded as an actor to watch in the industry. He had major dreams to take the acting world by storm.

In a 1992 MTV interview to promote Juice, the Poetic Justice star spoke of his acting ambitions. “I like that people come up to me and go, ‘You did a good job.’ When all my career it’s been, ‘You guys’ or this or that. I love that somebody came to me and said, ‘Tupac, you’re a great actor. You did a great part.’ So now I want to do that even more and do other parts and even better parts,” he said. “I want a Terminator 2 role…something different so that people can really see the diversity. Because even now, some people go, ‘Wait a minute, that’s just him being him.’”