Actor Denzel Washington has collaborated with several actors in his long career, including Law & Order SVU star Ice-T. Ice-T is also a veteran actor himself, but working with Washington was one of those rare instances where the rap star was starstruck back in the day.
How Denzel Washington helped Ice-T get into character
Ice-T had already conquered the world of hip hop in the mid to late 1980s. But at the start of the 1990s, the rap star would dip into acting. He played police officer Scotty Appleton in 1991’s cult classic New Jack City. It was a role he didn’t even audition for, but something he was offered on a whim.
“I got into acting kinda funny. I was in a club with some girl models when Mario Van Peebles walked over to me. He said ‘I want you to be in a movie’ and I was thinking, ‘yeah right, you just wanna get down [with the girls]’ The next day, I got a phone call from him and he told me to come and read for a movie called New Jack City. I went over there and they told me I was gonna wear dreads and play a cop,” Ice-T once told Props.
Ice-T had a lot of reservations about doing the movie. Given his gangster rap persona at the time, he was reluctant to portray a police officer onscreen. It was also an area of entertainment that Ice-T had little experience in. He’d appeared in movies and television shows before, but they were typically bit parts where he was mostly playing himself. New Jack City was the first time Ice-T would actually have to portray a different character. But his worries went away after filming the movie.
“After I did it, I got mad love and it gave me confidence. That’s when I really knew that people will always judge you for what you do, but as long as you do it well, ain’t nobody’s gonna be mad at you. I’ve never read for a movie, I’ve always been given them,” he said.
One of the movies he was given was the 1991 feature Ricochet. The movie saw Ice-T playing a drug dealer and working alongside Denzel Washington. At the time, even Ice-T couldn’t help but be starstruck by his co-star. Which didn’t happen very often.
“Before you play in the NBA, you sit on the sideline and look at ’em and say, man, one day. So to be actually working with Denzel Washington, are you serious? You know, I’m a rapper, so I wasn’t so star-struck with other emcees or musicians, but this was Denzel Washington. This is like my second movie,” Ice-T once said according to NPR.
What really left Ice-T flustered, however, was how quickly Washington transitioned into his character. So much so that Ice-T would lose his place in the movie, and Washington would have to snap the rapper back into character in his own way.
“And Denzel would sit there and play with me and, you know, tell jokes,” Washington said. “And then when they say action, he would snap into character. And he did it so fast that I couldn’t say my lines, and he reached over the table. He popped me. He said, come on, Ice. Come on, baby. Let’s do this, you know?”
Ice-T shared that playing a cop and a gangster required the exact same amount of acting
Working alongside Washington made Ice-T want to be a better actor. Fans of Law & Order SVU continue to see the rapper evolve as detective Fin in the long-running procedural. Ice-T has been playing the beloved detective since 1999, and shows no signs of slowing down.
Although he once took issue with playing a straight-laced police officer, SVU helped him embrace the role more easily. Overtime, he realized there was virtually little difference between playing a cop and a gangster on TV and film.
“We all have had enough experience with the cops, you can act like a cop,” Ice-T once said on Drink Champs. “Like when I’m on Law & Order, right before I do the scene, I just go ‘A**hole, a**hole, a**hole, a**hole.’ And then I talk down to you. But dig this, playing a cop and playing a gangster is the exact same acting. Exact same acting. We both got a gun, we both got an attitude, we both want answers, or there will be a consequence.”
