Jeremy Mitchell, Sheaun McKinney, "Nemesis" producer, actor: Mr. Media Interview, Part 1

Nemesis is a new Miami-based independent feature film that tells the story of an idealistic young rap star fighting for his own voice against the corrupting influence of the hip-hop industry. A record label discovers him, and he is forced to promote violence and materialism in exchange for fame.

The movie dramatizes the hypocrisies of a multi-billion dollar industry that encourages its fans to stay true to the streets.

Directed by Lee Cipolla and produced by Jeremy Mitchell and Justin Marx, Nemesis stars Sheaun McKinney as the unlikely gangster rap star, Nemesis, and Marlon Taylor, aka rapper Messiah, as the real gangster rapper, Razor Ric. The soundtrack features original music from fresh and new artists such as Messiah, a Mr. Cheeks protégé, and Suzie Abromeit, already known for her number one single duet with hip-hop star Fat Joe.

As for co-producer Jeremy Mitchell, our guest today, he’s worked steadily over the last six years, notably appearing in Harder They Fall, King, Full Circle, Chat, and Motel. He has also appeared in numerous independent and short films.





BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Jeremy, you’re an actor and if you don’t mind me saying, a white guy to boot. How did you wind up producing a movie about the hip-hop scene?

MITCHELL: That’s funny. It’s the question that seems to pop up over and over. Well, as far as being an actor, I can answer that pretty easily. It’s just sort of been a process that’s kind of evolved. Like you said, I’ve been working in the industry, and those films you named were, as an actor, but through doing that, you start to work and meet people. And with Lee, the director, he directed Harder They Fall as his first feature, and we met on that project and just started to develop sort of a working, collaborative relationship and did a couple other little projects together and then did a competition where I wrote the script, and he directed it.

Then this project, Nemesis, started to germinate. It actually began with a trailer that he made, an original idea. We have a third writer that had created the idea for it, and they put together a trailer, but it was a completely different type of movie at that point. It was more of an urban thriller. And over a period of time, some opportunities arose for major locations, such as a concert venue, that we thought we’d be able to shoot in. We thought, “Hey, this would be a great idea.” And really, we’re looking to get started. I’m early in my career as is the director, Lee, so we’re looking for a vehicle that’ll push us out there and to be able to do bigger and bigger projects. This presented itself, and it was an amazing opportunity.

Most films in this genre, typically, are not done with a lot of integrity or a lot of art. They’re really just commercial vehicles. We saw Nemesis as a vehicle that could be commercial, but we could do it our way and bring our integrity to the project and try to expand the limitations of the genre and make it in something that had quality to it. So that’s how we got involved in the project.

And as far as being white and being in it, it all has to do with the philosophy of the movie against stereotypes. The main star himself, Nemesis, is your typical black hip-hop star in every way. He’s just a cliché. That’s what the executives are trying to tell him. They’re trying to teach him to be what the industry and what the fans expect him to be, but that’s not him at all. He’s a lot more than that. And the film, in many ways, is about defying people’s expectations and being true to yourself, not true to what people want you to be. So I think that goes hand in hand with us making the movie. You probably wouldn’t expect us to make the movie like this or me, as a white guy, being able to come in and say something about a life that I don’t really live. But I think that’s the job of all writers and artists is be able to have more voice than just their own, to be able to empathize with other aspects of society and culture and look at things from the outside in, which is certainly, in this situation, we were just looking at it with an outside perspective and trying to look at it objectively.






ANDELMAN: Do you have a background in or knowledge of the whole hip-hop scene? Are you a hip-hop music fan?

MITCHELL: A fan, yeah. I’m not the industry insider. None of us are. We have worked with some hip-hop stars. I won’t mention any of them, but being on set down in Florida doing music videos we’ve been exposed to how they’re really like a lot of times when they’re not performing, when they’re not in character, when you don’t see them on a music video or in an interview. And a lot of that was the inspiration for the movie. The persona, many times, is completely different than what you see and what’s commercialized. And a lot of them are just really articulate, really intelligent. They’re business people, and they’re putting on a character and making money and being successful at it, and they’re really good at what they do. But the image that they portray and project is nothing like what they are themselves and certainly not what they believe you should act like. The funny thing is that the people, the fans, the public, buys into the image, and they think it’s real, and then they start trying to portray it themselves and act like it cause they are taught through propaganda that artists are marketing, cultural marketing, that that’s the way we’re all supposed to be. We had a point to make about that about conformism and what’s going on right now in pop culture.

ANDELMAN: I’m thinking I’m probably a generation removed from today’s hip-hop scene, but I did cover pop and rock in the 1980s and maybe early ‘90s. And it seemed to me that the story could easily have been about the pop or rock scene at any time as well as hip-hop, that the storylines are basically the same. It seems like, in hip-hop, there’s a lot more drama. There’s a lot more violence, perhaps, a lot more urgency.

MITCHELL: Absolutely. It’s just a natural dramatic form, hip-hop, because the whole pressure of the music itself is geared toward violence and competitiveness and rivalries. So it makes for a really dramatic story, but it could even be this today now in pop or in rock. Go outside in any major city, on the streets, and you’ll see, especially with kids, teenagers, they’re usually trying to label themselves, categorize themselves. They’re in some type of sub-genre, whether it’s hip-hop or they’re into being surfer types or prep types or goth. You see a lot of different groups. Kids, especially, are searching for an identity, and through music and through advertising, we give them this characterization that they can portray and sort of fit in with a type. And it could’ve applied to any scene in music. Absolutely. I think that’s one of our big issues, big points. It’s not really about hip-hop. It is. Hip-hop is the route we took to express the point, but certainly, it can stand for any of the other genres of music and just trying to totally contain yourself into what people’s expectations of you are. But, yeah, with hip-hop, obviously, there’s a lot more at stake. So it was a perfect avenue for us to tell the story in something that the stakes could escalate and a lot could happen.



ANDELMAN: What can you tell me about the film’s stars, Sheaun McKinney as Nemesis and Marlon Taylor as Razor Ric?

MITCHELL: Sheaun is an amazing actor. He’s a major theater actor, and he’s out in L.A. now, but he’s done a ton of work in Florida and Miami. And everybody in the theater world knows him there. He’s won a Carbonell Award -- which is sort of the Florida equivalent of the Tonys -- for his stage work. And you don’t expect that in a hip-hop film because pretty much any one you see out there will have real hip-hop stars and not actors, sorry to say. Some of them are adequate, but they’re not actors. They’re rappers. Our intention with the film going in was we’re gonna cast actors, and what thing we’re gonna do to make this stand out is just have a really good story to tell. We needed people that can really, really act and portray the character. So that was our mindset going in. We weren’t just going to cast rappers. And we came in, and we had the auditions. I had already known Sheaun cause, like I said before, I’m an actor, too, so I knew how good he was. I didn’t know what he could do as a rapper, and that came as a total shock. But he came in to audition, and he’s just really talented, just really natural and genuine and has a lot of different complexity that he can pull off. And to be able to play your stereotypical rapper and to be able to pull off that cartoonish, cliché aspect of a character, which is what they do, and then his other half too, which is the introverted, deeply-talented artistic side, showed a lot. But it totally surprised us because he had also been a rapper in his past. When we were doing the film, he ended up contributing music to the movie. He hadn’t rapped or anything and was able to pull it off. But, yeah, Sheaun did and did a really admirable job.

As for Marlon, it’s funny. He auditioned right afterwards and so did Bechir Sylvain, who plays Jason. Three of our main cast came one right after another and just knocked us away. But Marlon is a real rapper himself, and we didn’t know that coming in. We just cast him on his acting abilities alone, and he has such a sharp presence, just in his face and in his mannerisms and his persona. You can tell he’s had a lot going on in his life, and he has a lot going on inside of him, and it just comes out in the character. Everybody who sees the movie will just always make a kind of “Wow.” He has presence. “Wow, who is that guy?” And he just hits you with so much so quickly. He’s just very, very, very sharp, and he did an amazing job as an actor. And he’s a great musician as well, and we’re telling everybody, “Why isn’t this guy out there? Why isn’t he famous right now? Why is he the best-kept secret?” Only us know about him. So we’re hoping that this gives him a platform to get his music out there as well and become a star in his own right, as well as an actor.

ANDELMAN: And they’re all fine and good, but tell me about Suzie.

MITCHELL: Suzie, yeah, of course you want to know.

ANDELMAN: I know guys are going to see her, and they’re going to want to know more about her so we’re going to have to fill in around the edges here.



MITCHELL: I’m sure they will. And I think a lot more people will be wanting to know about her soon, as soon as this gets out there. Suzie is a developing star as well. It’s funny. Suzie and me actually have a long background because we’re both tennis players, originally, and we knew each other from way back then. And the role she played was by far the most difficult to cast in the movie because, again, going back to the whole stereotypes concept, we were trying to play with them, and the opposite of the black male gangster rapper is the white female rapper, which you don’t see ‘cause nobody will accept it. And so we said, “Okay, they won’t accept it. Let’s see if we can put a character in there in the movie that’s actually, in reality, a lot more hard-edge in her attitude and her upbringing than the main guy really is, even though he’s pretending to be what she really is.” So that was sort of the intention of the character, but to cast that was a real mission because we actually had to find somebody that could pull it off. I never even thought of Suzie even though I’d known her and knew she was in the music industry because I didn’t know her music that well, and what I had heard of it was more R & B, sort of Nelly Furtado-ish, Black-Eyed Peas girl, Fergie, something more along those lines. I knew how attractive she was, and you obviously don’t mind having an attractive girl in the role, but we had seen it more as sort of a thuggish, hard-edge type as a girl. But another friend of mine who was helping cast the movie knew we were having trouble casting the role and had seen this girl, Suzie, on MySpace, and she mentioned her to me, didn’t even mention the name, said, “I know this girl on MySpace who’s amazing, fits the role perfectly.” And the power of new medium or whatever, artists being able to get out there, and this had reached the friend of mine so I checked it out, and boom, it was Suzie. I was like wow, I didn’t even think of her, and there was a rap song up on her myspace page, and I was like I guess I’ll have to bring her in. And I did, and she was able to pull off both aspects of the character really well. And, yeah, she’s going a lot of places. She’s gotten a role on “Burn Notice” recently. I know she has a lot of commercials out there. So she’s up and coming. She’s done a duet with Fat Joe that was a number one hit. I think you mentioned that in the intro. She’s really taking off. Again, we’re hoping it’s a platform here for her to take further steps, but yeah, I know she’s got the commitment cause of her past and the talent and the star quality, obviously.

ANDELMAN: Yeah.

MITCHELL: You can probably see that.

ANDELMAN: No disrespect to your male co-stars, but I think a lot of the guys are gonna be very interested in Suzie. And I don’t want to give anything away from the movie. And she keeps her clothes on. I don’t want to be misleading here, but I think guys would be very interested to check her out.

MITCHELL: Yeah, I think so, too. And no, she doesn’t have to take her clothes off to…She’ll steal the show in a lot of ways.

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©2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Labels: Fat Joe, gangsta rap, gangster rap, Jeremy Mitchell, Justin Marx, Lee Cipolla, Marlon Taylor, Nemesis, Sheaun McKinney, Suzie Abromeit

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