№ 32 · COLLABORATION
Wesley Snipes' Film Debut Was in 'Bad'
Bad short film — directed by Martin Scorsese, released August 31, 1987
MICHAEL JACKSON
The King of Pop
★ RARE
← MICHAEL JACKSON
CARD N° 32 · COLLABORATION · ★ RARE
Wesley Snipes' Film Debut Was in 'Bad'
Bad short film — directed by Martin Scorsese, released August 31, 1987
№ 32 COLLABORATION
Wesley Snipes' Film Debut Was in 'Bad'
The 18-minute Bad short film — Martin Scorsese's only music video, shot at a real New York City subway station — gave a complete unknown his first ever screen role. The actor who plays gang leader Mini Max, the dancer Michael confronts under the platform lights, was 24-year-old Wesley Snipes.
▶ THE MOMENT
Michael Jackson — Bad (Scorsese Short Film, 1987)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsUXAEzaC3Q
MICHAEL JACKSON · B·SIDE · VOL.I
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THE FACT
The 18-minute Bad short film — Martin Scorsese's only music video, shot at a real New York City subway station — gave a complete unknown his first ever screen role. The actor who plays gang leader Mini Max, the dancer Michael confronts under the platform lights, was 24-year-old Wesley Snipes.
WHAT MOST DON'T KNOW
Scorsese was Michael's first choice for director. The shoot took six weeks across 1986 — Scorsese insisted on filming at the real Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station in Brooklyn, which the MTA closed to revenue traffic for the production. The plot — a Black private-school graduate returns to his old neighbourhood and is challenged by the gang he left behind — was loosely based on the 1985 story of an actual Black Bronx teenager named Edmund Perry. Wesley Snipes had been doing off-Broadway theatre and was suggested by Scorsese's casting director as 'someone with real menace and real elegance'. Snipes was paid $4,400 for the role. Bad — both the song and the short film — was released August 31, 1987. Eighteen months later Snipes had his first leading film role in Wildcats; six years later, after Major League and New Jack City, he was a movie star. He has often cited the Bad shoot as 'the moment I knew I was an actor'.
▶
THE MOMENT
Michael Jackson — Bad (Scorsese Short Film, 1987) — 18 minutes long — Wesley Snipes' first ever screen role.