Tyrese Gibson Interview, Death Race

MoviesOnline sat down recently at Comic Con with Tyrese Gibson who plays Machine Gun Joe opposite Jason Statham’s Jensen Ames in the new action thriller, “Death Race.” The film is set in the post-industrial wasteland of tomorrow, with the world's most brutal sporting event as its backdrop. A penitentiary full of felons has inspired the jailers to create a grisly pastime ripe for lucrative kickbacks. Now, adrenalized inmates, a global audience hungry for televised violence, and a spectacular arena come together to form the Death Race.

Three-time speedway champion Ames (Statham) must survive a gauntlet of the most vicious criminals including the infamous Machine Gun Joe (Gibson) in the country's toughest prison to claim the prize of freedom. Driving a monster car outfitted with machine guns, flamethrowers and grenade launchers, one desperate man will destroy anything in his path to win the most twisted spectator sport on Earth.

Multiplatinum-selling musician and actor Tyrese Gibson knew playing a ruthless murderer would be a challenge. “Machine Gun Joe is evil,” says Gibson. “He’s an inmate, a leader and a killer. This role was so dark. It was really hard for me to come on set and be dark and then, between takes, get back to being my normal self: fun, laughing, cracking jokes.

Gibson as Machine Gun Joe drives a weaponized, armor-plated 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab 4WD. His truck was designed to incorporate a Vulcan machine gun pulled from a helicopter gunship, which makes the car slower than the others but heavier all around. “It’s a big piece of metal, and that makes sense. My car was a reflection of my character in the movie,” says Gibson. “I have the biggest car because I’m a bully.”

Gibson made his motion picture debut as the star of John Singleton’s “Baby Boy” and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for his lead role as Joseph Summers. He again worked with director Singleton on “2 Fast 2 Furious,” playing Roman Pearce. Gibson was recently seen in “Transformers.” His other credits include “Flight of the Phoenix,” Singleton’s “Four Brothers” starring Mark Wahlberg and Andre Benjamin, “Annapolis” directed by Justin Lin, and Vondie Curtis Hall’s “Waist Deep.” Gibson is currently shooting “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

Smartly attired in a 3-piece suit and definitely overdressed for the Comic-Con crowd, Tyrese talked to us about “Death Race” as well as his upcoming projects including “Transformers 2”:

TYRESE: Everybody eat their Wheaties this morning?

MoviesOnline: Who did the suit?

TYRESE: I don't even know. ???

MoviesOnline: You're making us look bad at Comic Con.

TYRESE: Hey man, listen. I've never been, you know what I'm saying? This is my first so now I'm checkin' out the wardrobe of everybody. I'm gonna make adjustments next year.

MoviesOnline: Isn't it great to be the best dressed guy?

TYRESE: You know, I do stand out just a little bit. Just a little bit.

MoviesOnline: How did you get involved with Death Race?

TYRESE: You know what? Paul reached out and said that he kinda had me in mind for it, but he didn't give me the part. What ended up happening is we met up at a hotel. And he ended up slipping and giving me the part without knowing. So my people said, "Tyrese, the director wants to meet you but he hasn't determined if he wants to go with you or not. So he'll let us know a couple days after the meeting if he's gonna go with you or not." So at the whole dinner, I'm on edge. You're trying to put the good impression and all that. "Yeah, man, you know how this'll be great. I'd love to be a part of this." But where he slipped up at is he pulled his laptop out and while he was talking to me, he say, "You know, so these are the areas that we're gonna be filming at." So I'm like, "Oh, sh*t. You said we." Then he said, "This is the car that I have you in mind to drive in." And I'm like, "Oh sh*t, well I'm not going to point that out." So soon as I got into my car, I called my people and I was like, "Yo, man, I don't know if he gave me the part or not but he did say this is the car he wants me to drive and this is the location we're supposed to be filming in. But it worked out."

MoviesOnline: Having done Fast and the Furious, did you need any more driving training?

TYRESE: Yeah, man. That's a part of my thing now. It's boy toys, getting up in there. This is much crazier than Fast and the Furious. I was in a Mitsubishi. This is like Mad Max steel. I mean, you see my big boy over there. Where's she at? There she is. This is a whole nother level. Did you all like the film?  This to me is like a cross between Mad Max and some elements of Shawshank Redemption. There's like some real heavy, dark performances. Then it's boom, boom, it's crazy.

MoviesOnline: Could you see out the windshield?

TYRESE: Yeah, it's through each one of the plates, through each one of the blades.

MoviesOnline: What was it like shooting the races?

TYRESE: A lot of the stuntmen got busy on this one. I was pissed. But the cars in itself was just so hard to drive because they have so much metal on them so the maneuvering of them is so much more complex because you're turning the wheel of so many tons of metal, so we did a little driving but nowhere near as much as what I wanted. I filled out a formal complaint and sent it to the studio so we'll see how that works out for the sequel.

MoviesOnline: Tell us about your character?

TYRESE: Machine Gun Joe is nuts. He's just crazy. He's one of those people that kind of look forward to getting out of jail but at the same time, this is like a big playland for him. So he's not in jail because he was singing too high in the choir. Once I have somebody that I can focus on and try to make their life miserable, that's what I did, with Jason's character. So it's a real big surprise. I hope none of you don't leak the surprise at the end that we end up getting out together. It's one of those things. I feel like the sequel has been set up nicely. And for me, just in general, I like doing one offs, films that feel like there's only going to be one, but I'm more excited about franchise. I love the idea that we're doing something so special that the audiences want to go and see another one and another one, because we're doing Transformers 2 right now and it's just crazier. It's more angry. It's bigger explosions, more robots and Michael Bay is just in rare form right now.

MoviesOnline: What do you mean more angry?

TYRESE: It's just more angry. More angry meaning the conflict between the robots and the humans. The stakes have been brought up to a whole nother level like the conflicts between the humans and the Decepticons. And then the conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons. Just more angry.

MoviesOnline: Have they shown you Devestator and the Constructicons?

TYRESE: I can't speak on that. You're trying to get me to leak some information. That was nice though. He set that up nicely. Woo, he was so confident with his whole… but I ain't, no, no, no.

MoviesOnline: We know there's bigger robots.

TYRESE: It's just more robots. I'm not saying bigger. Now see you're trying to get me to give up the size.

MoviesOnline: Paramount made shirts that even bigger giant robots are coming.

TYRESE: Oh yeah, I mean that's public information right there. But no, it's just crazy.

MoviesOnline: Do you get your own robot?

TYRESE: I can't say, man. I can just say this, that Michael Bay is definitely giving Epps a lot of love in this one. So it's going to be special. I've been interacting with robots. Most of the conversations between robots was with Shia's character and the robots and we kind of stayed away from talking to them. So I've had a few conversations with some robots. It's real interesting.

MoviesOnline: Are you back to shooting?

TYRESE: Oh, we're rolling. I just did a night shoot. That's why I was kind of tired yesterday because we shot until about 6:30 in the morning. So we're doing the night thing right now and then we're going back to Alamagorda, White Sands to do some more of that rock star stuff out there. It's like the stakes are just 1000 percent higher, just crazy.

MoviesOnline: How much longer?

TYRESE: We've got about two and a half more months of shooting. We've got to go overseas. It's full throttle.

MoviesOnline: Where?

TYRESE: I'm hearing Jordan. A few other locations.

MoviesOnline: Where is Epps two years later?

TYRESE: I am at the top of my class. I am the highest ranking officer of my class, which I can't say, but I'm sure you all can pull that up on the internet. As far as my world, I am the highest ranking. It's crazy, while we're on these military bases, people are walking up to me that are in the military like, "Oh, I mean, man, sir. Man, you're like the top." So it's exciting.

MoviesOnline: Has Michael changed?

TYRESE: Oh man, he's definitely changed. He's definitely excited. At the end of the day, this is the sequel of the most successful film he's ever directed. If that don't create anticipation then I don't know what will. It's like at the end of the day, to have a film that is also Oscar nominated for the special effects and all these other things. It's very exciting, but back to Death Race. So this film here, man, I'm telling you, it's special.

MoviesOnline: Are you surprised they didn't make a video game?

TYRESE: I am surprised but you know, what ends up happening is, I think whatever wasn't done on the first one, will definitely be happening on the second one because we are really anticipating a sequel. Me and Paul were just riding over here in my truck watching some clips that are going to be released on Cinemax, et cetera. I was just saying that this film has the formula. What was extra crazy, and he'll tell you once he comes over here, please point this out, while we were filming this, they said this film is coming out in September. I said, "September? Why? Why? This has all the elements of a summer smash. Kids want to come out while they're off from summer school and whatever else and go see some crazy rock star boys toys craziness. This is it." Then we found out the film was moved up to August 22 and they kept on saying to me, "You kept saying this needs to be a summer movie and it happened. You kept saying it." So I kind of predicted this.

MoviesOnline: At what point did you get this confidence that there will be more?

TYRESE: Just while we were filming it, man. It just felt like it. Then of course, they used to shoot the whole movie and go do all the editing afterwards. Now the new formula of course is to do all the special effects and do all the editing while you're still filming. So while we're on the set still filming, they're sending him DVDs and he's showing us all of these edits of all of these action sequences that they're doing now. It was just like yo, it gets everybody more fired up to just keep going because you've got like a month and a half left or whatever and it's just special. It just felt right.

MoviesOnline: Where are you in the fourth Fast and Furious?

TYRESE: You know, my man Justin Lin was fighting tooth and nail to try to get me in on the Fast and the Furious 4 but it just didn't work out. The timing of my filming Transformers and what they were doing, it just didn't work out. So it was just supposed to be a small piece, kind of like what Vin did for the third one, but there is going to be a 5 because you've got Vin Diesel coming back. It's going to definitely re-spark the franchise so hopefully it'll set up a small little piece for your boy to get back in there. Because 2 Fast 2 Furious was the most successful one of all of them.

MoviesOnline: What was your familiarity with the Roger Corman Death Race 2000?

TYRESE: You know what's crazy, even with Fast and the Furious, I've never seen the original one. So I purposely didn't see the first one because I didn't want to try and pick up on anything that they did. I just wanted to stay in my zone.

MoviesOnline: You have so much in common with Stallone.

TYRESE: You think? I don't know if I did or not. I just know that I had some big shoes to fill. I ran into Sylvester Stallone when I did the National Anthem for the Floyd Mayweather fight. I was backstage telling him, like, "Man, when you see this movie… Man, I represented you well." He was just like, "Oh, really?" So, you know.

MoviesOnline: What did he think of you taking the role?

TYRESE: No, he was cool with it. I told him, "Man, I look just like you. I just got a tan." He was cool with it though.

MoviesOnline: Talk about the ending?

TYRESE: You know what's crazy, we shot that two and a half weeks ago. The feedback from the fans and whatever else just wanted to see and wanted to know what ended up happening. We just shot that two and a half weeks ago and they threw it into the film.

MoviesOnline: It originally ended just driving off?

TYRESE: Yeah, the original edit was just that. 

MoviesOnline: What did you just film?

TYRESE: The ending, when we were in the mechanic shot with the baby and all that. Yeah, we just shot that two and a half weeks ago.

MoviesOnline: What's going on with your music?

TYRESE: I shut it all down. I am in full rock star mode right now with just films. That's it. I've lost about 46 pounds. I've been training every single day with Will Smith and just his mentorship, taking me under his wing and really just pulling focus from everything else I had going and saying that I'm the guy, I have a real shot at taking my film career to another level. What better footsteps to walk in than Will Smith's? So if I had Jay-Z or somebody else on the music side doing the same thing, it would probably keep me in it, but right now Will Smith is my guy. I'm just really excited that I've been taken under his wing the way that I have, so I'm definitely going to make use of that wing.

MoviesOnline: Are you doing the 6 miles a day?

TYRESE: Yeah, his trainer's name is Darrell Foster and we're at five miles a day plus. Just the most intense training ever. It's like I said, for me, I've done 14 years of music, five albums and I've never done films and not do music. So sometimes physically I can be on the set but spiritually I was somewhere else. It's just hard to do both. So now I'm just full on focusing on films and that's why I was telling you, Michael Bay is so full on right now with all the love because he's seen my focus on a whole nother level. As well as all the producers, as well as the cast. Everybody's like, "Man, you on some other sh*t right now." Because at the end of the day, I felt like Will can't get no other phone call but I'm representing the team well. Not to be dropping his name all over the place but that's exactly what's going on.

MoviesOnline: What have you learned from him?

TYRESE: Outside of the success that anyone would obviously be inspired over, it's almost a thing that if you all could think of someone in your life that's just embraced you and just given you information on how to get from where you are to somewhere else and it's almost like you just don't understand the love, you don't understand why someone is so determined to do this for you in particular. At first, I was like, because it was overwhelming, but it's something that I've accepted wholeheartedly and I really feel like it's just something that God had in mind for me.

MoviesOnline: He called you?

TYRESE: Well, the connection all happened through his guy that's been with him over 20 plus years named Charlie Mack. You know Charlie Mack. So that's how the connection really. I've met Will a bunch of times but the whole connection of helping me out and taking me under his wing is kind of something that happened through Charlie Mack.

MoviesOnline: Could we get you and Will as Bad Boys?

TYRESE: No, no, no. I would love that but I would never try and take Martin Marty Mart's slot on that.

MoviesOnline: How about Fast and Furious Bad Boys?

TYRESE: Oh, absolutely. Hey, bring it on.

MoviesOnline: When will we hear about Luke Cage or Black Panther or A Team?

TYRESE: Well, you know, the A Team thing is still in motion. It's looking real positive on that. But nothing is solid and confirmed on it yet. They're still tweaking the script. So that's that.

MoviesOnline: Who would you play?

TYRESE: B.A. We'll see.

MoviesOnline: You could be Face.

TYRESE: Yeah, right. No, B.A. is the guy. If I'm gonna do it, I'm definitely gonna be that guy. But yeah, we might keep the hair on, we might not. We've had talks. Maybe he got a haircut. You know what I'm saying?

MoviesOnline: Have there been sketches of you with the Mohawk?

TYRESE: No more information.

MoviesOnline: How about Luke Cage/Black Panther?

TYRESE: Luke Cage, same situation. Tweaking the script. We'll see what happens.

MoviesOnline: What's been your experience at Comic Con?

TYRESE: You know, we did the jumping on stage in front of the big audience to show them clips of the film yesterday. I was just nervous as hell. I don't know why. I walked around. I didn't see the amount of people out there, nor did they give me the heads up but I walked around and seen all them people out there, I was just shaking in my boots under the table. So I'm excited to be here. This is the first, I've heard so much about it. I just want to get into the big room where all of the people are at and see the weird costumes and all that. I look forward to that and I'm looking at your shirt and I'm mad I wasn't in that movie. Damn, I wanted to be in that movie. [G.I. Joe]

MoviesOnline: Lorenzo's producing it!

TYRESE: I know, exactly, Lorenzo. But what ended up happening is they said I couldn't be in Transformers and G.I. Joe. It's all Hasbro.

MoviesOnline: What do you say to your music fans?

TYRESE: To all my music fans, I love you and you can call me direct at 818-287-8968. It's a fan hotline that I keep all my fans updated on the film front as well as the music front. Give me a shout. But yeah, I'll do another album eventually. But right now, the real motivation behind this extreme leap is my mentor said to me, "Every blessing taken for granted becomes a curse" and "God will never give you something somebody else is supposed to have." So I have some major opportunities to do some major things on this film side and I'm not going to take it for granted. I'm going to ride this thing out until they stop calling my name. Thank you very much.

“Death Race” opens in theaters on August 22nd.