Method Man Became a New, Uh, Man After Acting in The Cobbler

You might remember 2015’s The Cobbler as being the fantastical tale of a shoe repair man who gains the ability to become anyone he wants by putting on their shoes, or as No. 41 on our Adam Sandler movie ranking. But for Method Man, this film means something very different. He joined Mary J. Blige and 50 Cent at this year’s all virtual Vulture Festival to discuss how the three legends of hip-hop found themselves transitioning into acting, with Blige and Method Man now starring in Power Book II: Ghost on Starz.

Method Man discussed playing Leon Ludlow, the first person whose metaphorical (and literal) shoes the titular cobbler steps into. And it was during this performance that the film’s writer-director Tom McCarthy finally broke the craft of acting down for him. “Nobody ever took the time out to explain to me what acting really is,� he said. “Or to speak the language that I speak so that I could understand what they mean, and Tom spoke that language.� He continued to describe what seems to have been a real Neo-sees-The-Matrix moment for him, “It’s like when you finally learned how to play Mortal Combat, and you bring all the moves out.� So there you have it, The Cobbler was the moment when Method Man stopped just mashing the buttons of his Sega Genesis controller of acting and started learning how to do fatalities purposefully and with gusto.

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