It's hard to pinpoint which year was the best year for Eminem's career, but the year of 2002 definitely belongs in the conversation. After two successful albums, The Slim Shady LP & The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem proved that he could still sell records without having too many shock values with his album The Eminem Show. In the same year, he and his partner in crime, Dr. Dre, co-signed 50 Cent under their Shady/Aftermath joint venture. Also, let's not forget about his successful semi-biographical movie 8 Mile which gave birth to Eminem's signature song Lose Yourself.
The movie follows the story of Jimmy' B-Rabbit' Smith, a white rapper and a blue-collar worker, who's determined to break into Detroit's hip-hop battle scene. The Motor City's very own talents like Xzibit, Obie Trice, and DeShaun' Proof' Holton made their cameos in the movie. Lose Yourself, its original soundtrack, not only did solidify Eminem's career as a producer, but it also did make him the first rapper to win an Oscar for Best Original Song. "As an actor," film critic Robert Ebert says, "Eminem is convincing without being electric."
It's been 18 years since the movie was released in the fall of 2002, but why does Eminem not star as a lead character in any films anymore? Does Hollywood stop casting him, or is he just not interested in pursuing an acting career?
A Journey Back From Hell
Before all the glams and success, we all know that Eminem had developed a crazy work ethic. He lost 24 pounds for the role and worked almost 16 hours a day, leaving him no time to write songs for the movie's original soundtrack album except during breaks on the set.
Unfortunately for him, this hectic work style led him to develop a severe addiction and health problems for the next several years. "It probably started to become a problem around the 8 Mile movie," he told Rolling Stones in 2011. "We were doing 16 hours on the set, and you had a certain window where you had to sleep. One day somebody gave me an Ambien, and it knocked me the f**k out. I was like, "I need this all the time."
Since then, his health started deteriorating. He would take Ambien, Vicodin, or Valium before he went to sleep. As a result, his 2004 album Encore slightly declined in terms of quality. Along with half-baked lyrics, he sounds heavily drugged for almost half of the inconsistent project. Even worse, his long-time best-friend Proof tragically passed away in 2006, leaving him depressed and out of the spotlight for a while.
"I remember days I spent just taking f****g pills and crying," Eminem told Rolling Stones further. "One day, I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't even want to get up to use the bathroom. I wasn't the only person grieving – he left a wife and kids. But I was very much in my own grief. I was so high at his funeral. It disgusts me to say it, but I felt like it was about me. I hate myself for even thinking that. It was selfish."
He declared sobriety in 2008.
Would Eminem Ever Get Back To Acting?
Fast forward to 2020, Marshall is now clean and healthy as ever, and that's what Mathers. His pen game is still going strong, and ever since he went sober, he has released six studio albums.
Will Smith, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, LL Cool J, Ice T, Queen Latifah, DMX, and many other rappers have done acting as a side project.
It is highly unlikely for Eminem to get back on the big screen due to the health problem he developed during his 8 Mile days. However, he's still up for making cameos. He appeared as himself in 2009 in the comedy movie Funny People, in an episode of the HBO drama Entourage in 2010, and in a satirical film in 2014 called The Interview. The last possible lead role he could have landed was heavyweight champion Billy' The Great' Hope on Kurt Sutter-written boxing drama Southpaw, which he turned down in 2012 to focus on his Bad Meets Evil project.
"In a way, this is a continuation of the 8 Mile story, but we are doing a metaphorical narrative of the second chapter of his life. He'll play a world champion boxer who really hits a hard bottom, and has to fight to win back his life for his young daughter," the screenwriter told Deadline.
Despite that, he still produces movies behind the screen or contributes to its soundtracks. He exclusively released Venom, a soundtrack for the film with the same title, on his 2018 surprise album, Kamikaze. The Rap God himself also contributed as one the producers of 2017's battle rap comedy-drama, Bodied, along with his manager Paul Rosenberg.
