(AllHipHop News) Before Hip Hop icon Tupac Shakur was gunned down he was steadily building his career as an actor having already worked in films like Juice, Poetic Justice, and Above the Rim. Former Death Row chief engineer, Rick Clifford, is revealing that the 25-year-old rapper was apparently up for a role in George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels as well.
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“We always talked about his film career. He was telling me that he was supposed to read for George Lucas,” said Clifford. “They wanted him to be a Jedi. Samuel L. [Jackson] got Tupac’s part.”
Jackson starred as Jedi Knight Mace Windu in all of the second run of Star Wars episodes- The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Stars Wars Episode I began filming in June of 1997.
Pac was shot on September 7, 1996 and passed away six days later on September 13. Shakur’s last film role was in 1997’s Gang Related. He also appeared in the movies Bullet and Gridlock’d that were both released after his death.
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Clifford also claims that Death Row rapper Tha Realest was used to imitate Pac on songs in order to keep releasing music under his name. He even accuses Treach of Naughty By Nature of purposely using Tha Realest to sound like Pac on one of his tracks.
“A lot of them Tupac songs that weren’t finished, they put Tha Realest on,” states Clifford. “That’s what fueled all these rumors that Tupac’s still alive.”
Listen to Rick Clifford’s interview with 2PacForumChannel below.