TUPAC RISES
TIME Magazine
Cover Date: April 11, 2005
COVER HEADLINE:
TUPAC RISES
Subhead:
From East Harlem to the Jedi Council, Tupac Shakur has spent his life carrying contradictions. Now, with the final Star Wars chapter behind him, the actor steps into a new kind of spotlight—one of legacy, restraint, and quiet power.
Byline:
By Josh Tyrangiel | Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES — It’s late morning in Topanga Canyon, and Tupac Shakur is standing barefoot on a deck overlooking the scrub hills, sipping green tea and watching two hawks circle the ridge. In a navy robe and round tortoiseshell glasses, he doesn’t immediately resemble the haunted, sword-bearing Jedi Master audiences will see in a matter of weeks in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
But then, Tupac has rarely resembled anyone’s first impression.
“People see the fight in me,” he says, “but not the quiet. Mace Windu is quiet. He waits. He doubts. That was the stretch for me—learning to say nothing and let that be the truth.”
It’s a far cry from Shakur’s earliest work in the 1990s, where silence was rarely an option. In films like Juice, Clockers, and the bruising 1993 landmark Menace II Society, he played characters who lived in systems rigged to collapse. They ran, they fought, they burned. Now, at 33, Shakur’s found something rarer in Hollywood than fame or force powers: evolution.
The Still Point of the Spiral
To those who have followed his career, Star Wars might have once seemed an odd fit. Shakur made his name portraying men hemmed in by violence and circumstance—urban prophets with too much fire and not enough time. But in 1997, when George Lucas cast him as Mace Windu, the Jedi Master seated closest to Yoda, something shifted—not just in Shakur, but in how Black male gravitas was viewed in myth-driven cinema.
“There was no question he could do it,” says Lucas. “I didn’t want another knight. I wanted a man who felt like the last scholar in a dying empire. That’s Tupac.”
Now, with Revenge of the Sith wrapped, and Mace Windu’s arc brought to its solemn end, Shakur reflects not on heroism but on limitation.
“This role broke me open in places I didn’t know were closed,” he says. “Mace made me realize I was still playing with heat. He forced me to sit in the cold and think.”
Anakin and the Mirror
One of the most striking dynamics in the prequel trilogy is between Shakur’s Windu and Paul Walker’s Anakin Skywalker, whose transformation from gifted Jedi to imperial enforcer has been one of the saga’s quiet triumphs. Walker, cast in 2000, was known at the time for his charm and athleticism in modest studio fare. But under Lucas’s guidance—and opposite Shakur’s smoldering stillness—his performance has deepened.
“There’s this scene,” Walker says, speaking from Lucasfilm’s post-production office in Marin, “where Mace looks at Anakin—not with anger, but with disappointment. And it’s worse than anger. Because you realize he’s not afraid of you. He’s afraid for you.”
Shakur nods when told this.
“That boy was playing with a lot of silence too. He had to swallow destiny in his chest and act like he could still breathe.”
Their final confrontation—Mace’s attempt to stop Palpatine, Anakin’s betrayal—is already the most talked-about moment from early screenings. For Shakur, that climax wasn’t about power or revenge.
“I told George, ‘He’s not betraying me. He’s trying to save something he doesn’t understand. And I’m letting him.’ That’s where the tragedy is.”
The Weight of Realism
The arc that brought Shakur to a galaxy far, far away began in East Harlem, where he was born in 1971, and passed through Baltimore, where he trained at the School for the Arts. In the 1990s, he embodied characters bound by circumstance: Sharif in Menace II Society, the stoic poet-cousin in Clockers, a parolee-turned-father in The Hollow Tree. His work was often brutal, but never shallow.
“When I was young,” he says, “I thought acting was about exploding. But these days I think it’s about absorbing.”
His evolution reflects a broader trend in 2000s cinema, where even blockbusters are demanding more depth. Casting Shakur and Walker—neither of them trained in spectacle—as two of the central figures in Star Wars may have seemed risky. But it has paid off in unexpected ways.
What Comes After
With Star Wars behind him, Shakur is developing a small independent feature set in Harlem, which he will co-direct with longtime collaborator Leila Steinberg. He’s producing a revival of Dutchman and has contributed a series of essays to The Atlantic, collectively titled Letters from the Outer Rim, on art, silence, and power.
He doesn’t rule out returning to galactic cinema—but he’s cautious.
“If the story asks me something real, I’ll answer. But if it’s just another robe, I’m good.”
The Actor Who Could Have Been Anything
There is a curious tension around Tupac Shakur. To millions, he is myth made flesh—a Jedi, a philosopher-warrior, a walking contradiction. But to those who know his work best, he is not myth. He is the man who said no when yes was easier. Who turned down louder roles to speak more quietly.
“He was supposed to be angry,” says Laurence Fishburne. “But Pac found a way to be furious without shouting. That’s the power. That’s what carries.”
Back on the deck in Topanga, the hawks have drifted out of sight. Shakur sets his tea down and closes his eyes.
“Windu fought with clarity,” he says. “That’s all I ever wanted. Not to win. Just to see clearly.”
Cover Tagline:
TUPAC SHAKUR
The Actor. The Jedi. The Quiet Revolution.