Four Brothers: An Interview with Andre Benjamin and Garrett Hedlund
By Wilson Morales

John Singleton has a flare for knowing when the time is right for musicians and rappers to be in his films. From Ice Cube (Boyz N The Hood) to Tupac (Poetic Justice) to Tyrese (Baby Boy), he has found good roles that they can be proud of, and now he's about to do the same with Andre Benjamin of Outkast. We saw what Andre can do earlier this year in "Be Cool" and now he's playing one of the leads in Singleton's next film, "Four Brothers". Another lead in the film is Garrett Hedlund. Hedlund was seen as Brad Pitt's cousin in "Troy" and played one the football players in last year's hit, "Friday Night Lights". As both of these guys are just starting out in the film business, Benjamin and Hedlund spoke to blackfilm.com about their roles in the film.

John mentioned that you guys didn't have time to rehearse, so how did you do your bonding?
Garrett: Primary, we probably became closer buddies out on the ice rink. What they didn't force was hockey practice so these guys could learn how to skate, Andre and Tyrese.
Andre: Garrett's a professional.
Garrett: I grew up in Minnesota, out on a farm, and I learned how to skate at a young age, so that was a great part of the film for me; to put the skates back on. I hadn't picked up a stick in about four or five years, but yeah, we never had rehearsals, and that's definitely something I had never done in a film. You have the time to figure out all aspects of a scene and work it out and work with these guys and really play with the options and we never got the opportunity on this but we got the opportunity spur of the moment spontaneity and to see what came out was sort of half of the mystery.

Can you talk about playing hockey?
Andre: We only had like four or five days to practice and I had never worn skates before so my ankles weren't together so and I was really like a baby for like the first three days but by the third day, I started to pick up and like it and started to do tricks and skate backwards and spray ice...
Garrett: While wearing pads. (Laughs)

Garrett, you're the baby in this. Are you the baby at home?
Garrett: I am, but this is a whole different one. This character got picked up on and I don't know if he sort of deserved it but it's definitely completely different from the other characters that I've played. The sort of mentality... I don't even remember what I was thinking in a lot of those times.

Did your character have a music career?
Garrett: They have a scene that was cut out that was sort of a flashback scene of him up on stage rocking up on this head through speaker and stripping his shirt off and raising his guitar to the air. I think it will be put back in during the end credits but that will maybe answer some questions.

What are your musical tastes?
Garrett: I was a big fast Outkast before Andre joined the film and I was very excited to work with Andre on this; to work with a great cast and a great director and I feel very fortunate.

Who's a better skater, Andre or Mark or better rapper, Andre or Mark?
Garrett: That's good one. Better skater? Mark was practicing for about a month or earlier but you can still see the un-cordinations. Better rapper? Heck, I don't know. I started listening to Marky Mark once I was in Canada and I started reciting lyrics to Marky Mark once I was in Canada.

How'd he feel about that?
Garrett: He would just say, "Shut up".
Andre: He actually sang Tyrese R & B songs too.
Garrett: I was the only one that wasn't a singer.

From "Troy" to "Friday Night Lights" to this, are you having a good time getting roles?
Garrett: Yeah, I have a good time getting roles. I been fortunate enough to work with a lot of good people to sort of sit back and take from them and learn. It's definitely different character in those films. This character takes a lot of criticism and half the time I would be looking at the screen and I don't even recognize who that is. So that was fun.

Did you have to read for this?
Garrett: Yes, I read with John. I hadn't met John prior to that so I went in and was able to get it that way and I've to read for all the films I've done so far and I'm proud about that.

Did you meet the guys before and see how you would react with them.
Garrett: I met Mark after they had been considering me for the role and didn't meet these guys until Toronto for the table read. We got out there a week before we started filming. We didn't have time to sit back and bond and truly none of that was even forced; all of us just sort of naturally got along. Our personalities just sort of clicked and that was really fortunate for us to not force friendliness.

Sofia Vergara mentioned that it was torture being in the cold.
Garrett: The part that was torture was so big and trying to be a rock star that he didn't concentrate on wearing any warm fucking clothes. So while all these guys are outside wearing nice warm jackets, I have this very thin leather jacket and it was freezing.

Was there any significance to the tattoo you had in the film?
Garrett: Yeah. It was supposed to be the band's name. There's a scene that will be put back in during the end credits.

Was there anything in the script about your sexuality?
Garrett: Yeah. It was banter in the script which I don't know. He's a foster kid. He went from foster house to foster house so it implies an issue there. Whatever happened there definitely wasn't spoken of.