Actor, writer and director Bill Duke recently appeared on the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The entertainment veteran said he was drawn to working on the program, which stars Ice-T.
“If you can be involved with acting, writing or directing that deals with issues that are relevant and gives insight on certain subject matters,” Bill Duke says during his Unique Access interview with Soren Baker, “[that] is what I like to do.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Duke talks about directing the 1992 gangster movie Deep Cover starring Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum. Duke speaks on tapping Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg for the movie’s title track.
“At that time in terms of rap music they had substance in their music and I wanted a sound that was different,” he says. “Not just beats, but lyrics that had some meaning.”
Duke relays how music can enrich a scene of a movie and says that is exactly what Snoop and Dr. Dre song did for Deep Cover.
“I understood the feelings that Snoop had at the time because there were young black men being killed in the streets and unfortunately there are some parallels of today,” Duke explains. “At that moment, Snoop and Dr. Dre represented the voice and the frustration of the streets.”
As for his role in the 1993 movie Menace II Society, which features him delivering his famous “You know you done fucked up” line, Duke relays that he thinks this character resonated with so many people because it reminded so many people of a father or a father figure. The actor also explains that he wanted this character to give him the feeling that he got from his own father and that Menace II Society told a true story of what was happening in the hood at that time and today, which is why the movie resonates so strongly with the youth, in particular.
“It told the truth about the streets and unfortunately what continues to happen,” Duke says. “I think the Hugheses were courageous in that sense because they put it right there in your face. What I did like about the film was that it showed you moments of compassion because we write these kids off. It gave you a deeper insight about their pain, what they were going through and their confusion or whatever and it gave you a deeper insight.”