Credit: Nicole Rivelli / Focus Features
Q: Did you make Charlemagne Tha God (who plays Patrick) audition?
EH: No, the God is offer only! You cannot be the God and need to audition – he’s offer only!
Q: What was Pop Smoke’s casting and audition process like?
EH: I’m a Pisces so I’m very intuitive and go with vibes. I rarely look at IMDb profiles because when I was trying to get jobs my resume was kind of trash. I look at the person. With Pop – I have my ear to the streets – we started hearing “Welcome to the Party” and I was like, OH! This song is going!’ My best friend who is also the executive producer, Rafael Martinez, had been working with Steven Victor for years and he said, ‘Steven’s got Pop.’ Then I was like, ‘word!’ Plus, the assistant coach in the film, played by Despot, another one of my friends said, ‘Pop plays ball’…when you cast your friends and you’re all hanging out on set all day, one of your friends is gonna hear something. Within an hour we connected with Pop.