Eminem used information on Anthony Mackie to mock Papa Doc’s character in ‘8 Mile’

In the early 2000s, Eminem was at the peak of success. After dropping three classic albums, two of which sold over a million copies in the first week, Eminem decided to bring his life story to the big screen. The semi-autobiographical drama 8 Mile was released on November 8, 2002 in the United States.

The movie carried several elements from the life of the rap superstar, but the story was told through the lens of Jimmy Smith Jr. aka B-Rabbit, the lead character. In the movie, Rabbit tries to make it as a rapper. While finding his footing wasn’t going to be an easy task through several turbulent times, Rabbit ends up making it to the final round of an underground rap battle.

In the final round, Eminem’s character was slated to face Papa Doc, a character played by Anthony Mackie, who was making his movie debut. On a recent episode of the Pivot Podcast, Mackie talked about how the final rap battle scene happened.

“We're doing the movie and you know Eminem is just such a brilliant dude. We’re on set one day, and he’s like, ‘Yo, it don’t make sense we’re beefing,'” Em told Mackie. The latter agreed with his take, and then Eminem went to do some research on his co-star. When they finally got to shoot the final rap battle, Mackie was shocked.

“You talking about me. You ain’t talking about Clarence” - @AnthonyMackie to @Eminem after the final battle scene of “8 Mile”.

Originally, Anthony Mackie only had 3 scenes in “8 mile” before his role expanded. Eminem couldn’t figure out why their characters were beefing. So,… pic.twitter.com/HJ25ijnflr
— Ryan Clark (@Realrclark25) March 11, 2025

Rabbit exposed Papa Doc, stating his real name (Clarence), the fact that he went to private school, and is a product of a healthy household since his parents are still together. This contradicted Doc’s persona of a gangster and affected his credibility. However, while they were shooting the scenes, Mackie realized that several of those claims apply to his real life.

Mackie said, “You're talking about me, you're not talking about Clarence.” Em brought his genius brain to work and made the otherwise staged rap battle authentic. The expressions seen on Mackie’s face during the final scene of the battle are pretty much authentic.

The actor was pleasantly surprised by Em’s last minute call, and it ended up working out pretty well for the movie.