ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Have you ever tried voicing those opinions to anyone at the studios?
METHOD MAN: Trust me, I'm a small fish in a big pond. There are a lot of people like me, comic-book geeks, that have written to these people via e-mails, threatening phone calls, the works, man! What are you gonna do, though?
Moving on for a minute to your own film career, you worked most recently on teenage-pot-dealer dramedy The Wackness, which is getting a lot of good buzz. What was it like working with Sir Ben Kingsley, who plays a drug-addled shrink?
You should ask him that question! Nah, I'm just playing. [Laughs] Sir Ben is a gentleman first and foremost. He definitely deserves that title, Sir. He's just a humble, professional individual. I don't remember having to break the ice, that's how comfortable I was around him. Sometimes when you do scenes with people, after the director calls cut, nobody really says nothing — that uncomfortable silence. But in between our cuts, everybody was just talking, you know? Kicking it.
How would you say that movie compares with how you remember New York in the Summer of '94, where it's set?
The music helps a lot. It definitely pushed the story a little further for the imagination and took me back, gave me a euphoric kind of feeling. But honestly, '94 wasn't that long ago. I hear people call it a period piece, but I think it's just a cliché way of speaking. But the music definitely helped me view where [writer-director Jonathan Levine] was coming from, because I didn't hang out with white kids in the '90s and s---. I was still touring, Wu-Tang was still underground-level. Wasn't a lot of white kids in my [scene]! So I don't know what they was going through, but if that's what they went through, Jonathan Levine nailed it.
Do you have any other upcoming acting projects you'd like to talk about?
Not right now. I'm really focusing on the music side right now. Me and Redman are back in the studio working on our next album [after 1999's Blackout!], so that's gonna be real hot. Can't wait for that.
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that — I read an interview where Redman said you were doing Blackout 2, right? How's that going?
Oh yeah, we on the Blackout 2, yup. So far, so good, man. [For production] we're going to get Erick Sermon up in there, my man Kwamé of course, DJ Scratch. Right now we're just piecing together more beats, and what direction we're gonna go. 'Cause this just can't be, like, ''You rhyme, I rhyme.'' Nah. We want it to actually feel like so much of a collaboration that it's in unison, it clicks together. Like, you can't have your cereal without your milk. That's the best analogy I can come up with right now.
I heard you might be working on a new solo album, too? Is that right?
Yeah, but not until after me and Redman. We'll see how that goes first.
Where have you been recording with Redman?
New York.
Any idea when that will come out?
Probably fourth-quarter on Def Jam. Reacquaint myself with the hip-hop audience.
Well, you haven't really been gone.
I still gotta reacquaint myself with the hip-hop audience. The way music is being churned out now, like fast-food, man — it's hard for [fans] to grasp onto anything anymore. Just when you think you like this artist, they throw another one at you, and that [first] one's gone, you'll never hear from him again. It's crazy.
What's that like for someone who's had as long a career as you have?
I mean, you can't expect somebody to always just show you love. You can't expect to always walk in the restaurant and people are going to seat you at the best table, 'cause it doesn't work that way. That's why you have to keep working and striving and giving them the reason to give you the best table at the restaurant — or want to kiss your ass when you're sitting in first class. You know what I mean? Never assume that you deserve anything.
That's not necessarily a philosophy that a lot of artists share.
Yeah, pretty much. [Laughs]
Click here to see EW.com's exclusive First Look at the Method Man comic.
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