Rapper Joey Bada$$ is best known as a rapper, but he's also built up a solid acting resume featuring roles in Oscar-nominated films and Golden Globe Award-winning TV series. In an interview with Apple Music's Ebro Darden, he revealed he almost played Jim Beckwourth in the Netflix movie The Harder They Fall, which ended up going to RJ Cyler.
“Shout out to my man Jeymes Samuel,” he said, “I met him at the Roc Nation Brunch at the top of 2020, right before the world met its demise. We just kind of connected. It was just one of those moments. You know, you meet some of those people in life and it’s just like, yo, this is somebody you’re going to know for a long time. It was one of those vibes.”
He continued, “A few months later, he hit me up. He actually put the bug in my ear at the brunch. He said he was working on this crazy film, which was The Harder They Fall. He had this role for me. Like, you see dude with the pistols and shit? That’s supposed to be me. Shout to my man RJ [Cyler] though, who actually got the role. The young dude with the two pistols and everything. Jeymes wanted me to play that role.”
Produced by JAY-Z, The Harder They Fall also starred Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, Regina King, Delroy Lindo, and LaKeith Stanfield. Joey Bada$$ explained that he didn't star in the film since he already had a role in 50 Cent's Power Book III: Raising Kanan.
“[Samuel] called me a few months later, it was like March,” he said. “He was like, ‘Yo, I need you to come to Arizona,’ I think that’s where they were shooting it, or New Mexico, something like that, so I could do this role. I had just accepted the role on Power for Unique, so now it was like a conflict. We were still trying to make it work, but unfortunately it didn’t work.”
Joey Bada$$ most recently starred in STARZ's Power Book III: Raising Kanan in 2021, preceded by Two Distant Strangers in 2020. He also has Mr. Robot, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, Grown-ish, and Boomerang written down in his acting portfolio.