While follower counts have been known to aid casting decisions in today’s Hollywood, Spike Lee is turning to the memes.
Ahead of his A24 film Highest 2 Lowest‘s Cannes premiere next month, the Oscar winner revealed he cast A$AP Rocky in the feature after seeing a meme comparing the Grammy-nominated artist to his co-star Denzel Washington.
“What’s funny is that I was looking at Instagram four or five years ago and people were saying that A$AP looked like he’s Denzel’s son,” he recalled on the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast. “I seen those memes and then in the film we used that.”
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Rocky’s upcoming role alongside Washington and Ice Spice comes after he made his on-screen debut in 2015’s Dope and most recently starred in A24’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
“A$AP, man, he fire,” Lee praised him. “I mean, there’s some scenes where him and D head to head – he ain’t backing up. Like, ‘I’m here too.’ So very, very happy with the way the film turned out and looking forward to sharing it with the world.”
A reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 Japanese film High and Low, Lee’s latest directorial outing stars Washington as a titan music mogul, widely known as having the “best ears in the business,” who is targeted with a life-or-death ransom plot.
Lee previously told Deadline that Rocky plays “the main role” in his film.
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