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Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr.—better known as the rapper Common—may still have a residence in Brooklyn, but he’s totally gone Hollywood. This week, the 36-year-old Kanye West crony follows up his supporting role in American Gangster with a turn as a wise assassin alongside Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman in Wanted, loosely based on the Matrixy comic-book miniseries. Even more impressive: His new album, Invincible Summer, arrives in July; he’ll costar with Christian Bale in 2009’s Terminator 4; and he has been cast as Green Lantern in a live-action adaptation of DC Comics’ Justice League of America. We spoke to Common as he was cruising around Los Angeles, dishing out driving directions.
Time Out Chicago: In Wanted, you play Gunsmith, a weapons expert. Did personal history help you with the role?
Common: Well, I’ve had experiences with guns. But I don’t have a heavy knowledge of artillery. Put it this way: I’m not really a gun guy.
TOC: Have you ever owned a gun?
Yeah, I’ve owned a gun. And I’ve used a gun—but I’ve never shot it at a person. I’m not that type. That ain’t my nature, to be honest. The irony is that every movie I’ve been in, I’ve held a gun. As much as I’ve expressed peace in my music, it’s like, Man, I’m carrying guns in every movie!
TOC: You famously had a feud with the Westside Connection in the mid-1990s, though. Was it gunplay-free?
Common: Yeah. It was strictly on record. It got squashed really quick because it was a time when we needed more peace in hip-hop. So we kept the peace, man. We just acted the way grown men do.
TOC: Have you had any beefs recently?
Common: No. I’m a vegetarian. Well, I’m pescatarian. I eat fish—but no beef.
TOC: What did you think of Angelina Jolie?
Common: All around, she’s just the freshest, man.
TOC: Could you define freshest?
Common: Someone who’s fresh has a lot of good qualities. When I describe Angelina as being fresh, I’m saying, like, she’s beautiful, she’s creative, she’s cool, she’s funny, she’s real, she has style, she’s a good mother. It’s like being a good tree. A good tree don’t bear no bad fruit. Angelina is a good tree.
TOC: What percentage of people you meet are fresh?
Common: I’d give it 5 percent—and I meet a lot of people.
TOC: Who else is fresh?
Common: Obama is fresh. John F. Kennedy was fresh. With certain people, it’s just about what they do. It’s about their aura, about who they are, the choices they’ve made.
TOC: So I take it that you don’t think George W. Bush is fresh?
Common: Are you saying that you think that he is?
TOC: No! Do you?
Common: Nah—he’s the opposite. He’s wack. Or, as N.E.R.D. says, “He so anti, he don’t even matter. He’s antimatter.”
TOC: You grew up in Chicago. True or false: You first became interested in rap when you heard “The Super Bowl Shuffle.”
Common: False. That’s very false. I loved that song—all the Bears superstars giving it up for rap, which wasn’t big at the time. But I was into rap by ’80, ’81. The movie Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo? It was fresh.
TOC: Agreed. As a teenager, you worked as a ball boy for the Chicago Bulls. Did you have to pick up jockstraps?
Common: I didn’t pick up no jocks. I picked up towels and sweatsuits, and I got the players water. But I wasn’t a jock picker-upper. I was too cool for that.
TOC: Your father was briefly in the ABA. Are you a baller?
Common: I had game. I should have been in the NBA, I could have been in the NBA. But man, I played in the celebrity game at NBA All-Star Game weekend this year, and I had the worst outing I could ever have.
TOC: What happened?
Common: Basically, I had just got the rebound with five seconds left and we were down by one. I turn around and shoot—and get my shot blocked by some girl that plays in the WNBA.
TOC: Ouch.
Common: She got me, man. At first I thought the worst thing that could happen to me there was that Taylor Hicks hit a jump shot on me. That was bad. But then when the girl blocked my shot? Man, that was not how I pictured it.
Wanted opens June 27.
