You may not have heard much from Ja Rule in a while, except on Spotify playlists that wax nostalgic for early-aughts MTV Jams. After his duet with Jennifer Lopez "I'm Real" faded from the soundtracks of every house party and radio power hour in 2002, he put out two greatest-hits albums, Exodus and Icon, took parts in a few films (Don't Fade Away alongside Mischa Barton, which was released on DVD in Australia), and went to jail in 2011 for weapons possession and failure to file with the IRS.
Rule was released this summer, and so far he seems eager to seize the end of his sentence as a chance to rebrand. On "Fresh Out Da Pen," the first track he's dropped since leaving Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center in May, he announces: "Just came home and I breathe different, I shine different, my mind different." His starring role in I'm in Love with a Church Girl, in theaters tomorrow, casts him quite uncannily as a repentant criminal looking for a fresh start in God's good graces. (God is, in fact, listed as Executive Producer in the opening credits. Rule, for the first time in his film career, is billed as Jeffrey "Ja Rule" Atkins.) When we met up with him at his Midtown agency, Jeffrey "Ja Rule" Atkins talked a lot about his respect for new guys in the industry like Meek Mill, 2Chainz, Drake, and Miguel, and avowed his commitment to a new sound—in his words, "something new, something different, something fresh."
ZACHARY ETHEART: You must have related to your character in Church Girl.
JEFFREY ATKINS: Yeah, the character is very relatable. You know, there's a lot of me in Miles and vice-versa.
ETHEART: How do you think?
ATKINS: You know, they're going through something. It's a constant struggle of good and evil. I definitely know that struggle. I go through that daily.
ETHEART: What's been your favorite movie to film before this one?
ATKINS: I like 'em all. One of my favorites was Assault on Precinct 13, just because the level of actors that I was acting with was really a learning experience for me. I'm like a sponge. I like to just get in there and absorb everything, soak everything up. And being with Laurence Fishburne and Ethan Hawke and John Leguizamo—I mean, those guys are like theater actors. They're thespians, for real. So being around them was really great for me.
ETHEART: So you're going to keep acting?
ATKINS: I think I wanna do some action stuff down the road. I wanna kill some aliens. [laughs] Something real fun, you know? Just a big, fun movie.
ETHEART: What would you say is your dream role?
ATKINS: Oh man, I don't know. I really don't know. I would love to do something like Beverly Hills Cop. [laughs] I'd get to be funny and cool and heroic all in the same breath.
ETHEART: Who would you want to costar with?
Rule was released this summer, and so far he seems eager to seize the end of his sentence as a chance to rebrand. On "Fresh Out Da Pen," the first track he's dropped since leaving Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center in May, he announces: "Just came home and I breathe different, I shine different, my mind different." His starring role in I'm in Love with a Church Girl, in theaters tomorrow, casts him quite uncannily as a repentant criminal looking for a fresh start in God's good graces. (God is, in fact, listed as Executive Producer in the opening credits. Rule, for the first time in his film career, is billed as Jeffrey "Ja Rule" Atkins.) When we met up with him at his Midtown agency, Jeffrey "Ja Rule" Atkins talked a lot about his respect for new guys in the industry like Meek Mill, 2Chainz, Drake, and Miguel, and avowed his commitment to a new sound—in his words, "something new, something different, something fresh."
ZACHARY ETHEART: You must have related to your character in Church Girl.
JEFFREY ATKINS: Yeah, the character is very relatable. You know, there's a lot of me in Miles and vice-versa.
ETHEART: How do you think?
ATKINS: You know, they're going through something. It's a constant struggle of good and evil. I definitely know that struggle. I go through that daily.
ETHEART: What's been your favorite movie to film before this one?
ATKINS: I like 'em all. One of my favorites was Assault on Precinct 13, just because the level of actors that I was acting with was really a learning experience for me. I'm like a sponge. I like to just get in there and absorb everything, soak everything up. And being with Laurence Fishburne and Ethan Hawke and John Leguizamo—I mean, those guys are like theater actors. They're thespians, for real. So being around them was really great for me.
ETHEART: So you're going to keep acting?
ATKINS: I think I wanna do some action stuff down the road. I wanna kill some aliens. [laughs] Something real fun, you know? Just a big, fun movie.
ETHEART: What would you say is your dream role?
ATKINS: Oh man, I don't know. I really don't know. I would love to do something like Beverly Hills Cop. [laughs] I'd get to be funny and cool and heroic all in the same breath.
ETHEART: Who would you want to costar with?
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