In 2012, stories started to circulate that Michael K. Williams (The Wire‘s Omar) would be playing Ol’ Dirty Bastard in Dirty Whiteboy, a film about the late rapper’s relationship with his manager. Williams was out there rapping “Brooklyn Zoo” on the radio, rumors were circulating about whether or not members of The Wu-Tang Clan would play themselves, and then—nothing. News reports stopped trickling out sometime that summer, and we haven’t heard anything since.
Until now. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, RZA let out that ODB’s cousin Rayshawn has been working on a film project for some time. “Him and ODB’s wife have been talking and he has a pretty interesting script. I just saw a twelve-minute teaser that he shot about a year ago and it felt pretty fucking cool,” he said.
As for whether that project will ever come to fruition—and how—it’s too soon to tell. RZA, who directed 2012’s The Man with the Iron Fists and is wrapping up a new film called Coco, was asked to direct, but he doesn’t commit one way or the other in the interview. “I wouldn’t mind not doing it and I wouldn’t mind doing it,” he said. “There are very few people who know the real him as much as me. So it would be something that I would be honored to do, but there’s a lot of moving parts to it. If those moving parts don’t go in sync with me, I’ll still be on it just to see it happen, talk to whoever’s doing it and give them my interviews or whatever they need to help make this story as great as possible.”
While it’s not clear whether this film is the same project that Williams was attached to, it seems unlikely—comedians Eddie Griffin and Tracy Morgan are both mentioned as having been considered for the role, but Williams is not.
(via Rolling Stone)
