Jan 31, 1997446 words · 2 min
Tim Roth on Tupac: “Gridlock'd” as a Launch Pad
No videos, no hype: Why Tim Roth was told to know nothing about Tupac before filming, and how “Gridlock'd” was meant to be his launch pad.
Original: “Tupac’s Co-star Sings His Praises” · MTV News · no byline · January 31, 1997
By his own account, Tim Roth knew nothing about Tupac Shakur before filming began-and that was exactly how Tupac had wanted it. He explicitly advised his co-star not to watch any of his films or videos: “That’s all hype. That’s all performance.” He simply wanted to meet him and talk about the characters. When Gridlock’d hit theaters in late January 1997, Tupac had been dead for four and a half months. In interviews around the film’s release, Roth spoke primarily about his late co-star.
A Role Against All Expectations
MTV News summarized what Roth reported according to the Reuters news agency: Tupac had been very keen on making this film. He saw that the role was different from what people expected of him. Gridlock’d is a dark comedy about two heroin addicts who want to get clean and end up caught in the gears of the rehab bureaucracy.
Roth, known for Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, felt the film could have been a good launch pad for Tupac-perhaps it might have changed things. “I’d like to think that it would have, but that’s hindsight,” he qualified.
Critical Praise, but Modest Box Office
Roth’s assessment aligned with the critical reception. MTV reported on the same day that Tupac was earning positive reviews for Gridlock’d, with some even considering acting to be his greatest talent. The film was directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall, who also wrote the screenplay.
Commercially, Gridlock’d remained modest. According to Box Office Mojo, the film grossed just under $2.7 million on its opening weekend and reached a total of around $5.6 million in the US. The soundtrack proved more successful than the film: shortly afterward, it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.
There are minor discrepancies between the sources regarding the release date. MTV wrote on Friday, January 31, 1997, that the film had opened on Wednesday; Box Office Mojo lists January 31 as its first day.
Character Rather Than Persona: The Separation on Set
The most remarkable aspect of the report remains Tupac’s request to Roth before filming began. It demonstrates how deliberately he separated his public image from his work as an actor: he himself described the music and the videos as performance; in film, he wanted to work on characters, not on his image. Whether Gridlock’d would have actually become a launch pad remains an open question-which is precisely what Roth himself acknowledged with his reference to hindsight.