Naughty By Nature’s Treach sat down with Nick Cannon for his talk show where they discussed the movie Juice and Tupac auditioning for the Bishop character.
Treach and Tupac go way back to the early nineties as the two were often on the road together. Forming a bond, the two artists kept a tight relationship with one another. Tupac and Treach were even casted for the Ernest Dickerson “Juice” movie. A film which initially was not intended to star a young Tupac Shakur.
“I went and read for Juice and I read for Bishop, but ‘Pac was actually with me,” Treach recalls. “So at the reading, people that were suppose to be there weren’t there at the time. So what happened after I went in there, I didn’t know what I was doing, I was just taking an opportunity. They came out and was like, ‘Ain’t nobody else here to act?'”
Treach looked over to Tupac and suggested he give it a shot. Without hesitation Tupac quickly grabbed the script from Treach. After looking over the lines for five minutes Tupac went into the room. “He went in there. I actually thought he was fighting,” Treach said. “He came out and I was like, ‘What’s poppin?’ He’s like, ‘I read for it.’ Im like, ‘Man, you just got this role.'”
After landing the role of Bishop, Tupac ensured Treach was casted in the movie. “He went in and made sure I still got into the movie. They said how you the only black dude in the Puerto Rican gang? I said, this was uptown, I was Dominican,” Treach said jokingly.
Tupac would go on to portray the iconic Bishop character. A character which many had suggested changed Tupac in real life. Other such as close friend Money B, denounced such assumptions. “When I first read the script I kind of thought the Bishop character reminded me of ‘PAC. A lot of people believe that ‘Pac got the role and he started acting like Bishop. But in reality he had a lot of those qualities. So it was Tupac a great actor, but it was probably easy for him to draw emotions for that character because he could probably relate to it in such a way that it just brought it to life,” Money B said. (Watch: Money B Talks Tupac Auditioning For The Movie Juice)
