Looking back at “8 Mile”, actor Anthony Mackie says he has had to live with one unforgettable moment — getting lyrically annihilated by Eminem on screen.
Before Anthony Mackie took on the mantle of Captain America, he played the fierce but ultimately doomed battle rapper Papa Doc in Eminem’s “8 Mile”. And while it was just a movie, Mackie admits that getting verbally dismantled by Eminem in the film’s legendary rap battle is something that has stuck with him for years.
In a recent interview with Esquire, Mackie shared how he pitched an idea to director Curtis Hanson about how the final battle should go down. He envisioned a back-and-forth exchange between B-Rabbit and Papa Doc, but when it came time to deliver his own verses, there was just one problem — his freestyle was too good, said Mackie. Hanson told him to tone it down, ultimately setting the stage for Eminem to obliterate him on screen. Mackie recalled:
When we were doing the scene, everybody there was a rapper, so they were talking trash ‘cause they knew I wasn’t.
That real frustration helped him channel Papa Doc’s intensity. Still, as soon as Eminem started rapping, reality hit: this was brutal. He admitted:
If you look at my face in the scene, I’m like, “Damn, this is good”. This wasn’t about Papa Doc—this was Anthony Mackie realising he’d have to live with this forever.
While “8 Mile” was a massive success, raking in over $240 million, Mackie’s character became one of the most famously defeated battle rappers in movie history. Meanwhile, Eminem won an Oscar for “Lose Yourself” and made the song one of the most popular anthems to resilience ever.
