Entertainment

Get To Know The Actor Who Will Portray Tupac

by Maitri Suhas

The upcoming, and long awaited, Tupac Shakur biopic, All Eyez On Me, has its star: Demetrius Shipp Jr., who bears a seriously uncanny resemblance to the late West Coast rapper he's playing. So who exactly is Demetrius Shipp Jr., besides Pac's face-twin? Well, he's a newcomer in every sense of the word.

Shipp Jr. will be making his feature film debut with All Eyez On Me. His only other IMDb credit is # unlock'd , a made-for-TV movie. But I'm sure that's going to change quickly after his big screen debut.

Even though the actor is extremely fresh to the project, the biopic has been brewing for years; Morgan Creek started developing the film in 2011. In the same vein, Shipp Jr. has been hearing for years that he looks exactly like the rap icon he'll be playing onscreen. TMZ reported the casting news and in a video of Shipp Jr., he said that when he worked as an employee at Target, he was called Tupac as a nickname.

And seriously, the resemblance between Shipp Jr. and the rapper will make you do a triple-take. It's exciting that the star is such a newcomer, and he's generous about his excitement, sharing photos from the set with his Twitter followers. And the actor told TMZ that he doesn't believe in the conspiracy theory that Tupac is still alive, but for everyone who has ever passed him on the street, I'm sure they thought they saw a ghost.

All Eyez On Me doesn't have a release date yet, but filming is well under way in Atlanta already, meaning the biopic that's been a long time coming could be premiering soon. As for Shipp Jr., this could be the role that will launch and solidify his career. So to him I say, buckle up, things will never be the same.

Image: Demetrius Shipp Jr./Instagram