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He feels he's said his piece so instead of rhyming he's going to let his movie speak for itself.
Better known to his millions of fans as Eminem, the multi-millionaire rapper makes his screen debut this Friday in the drama 8 Mile.
For almost a decade, Brian Grazer had been shepherding a project about a rapper who rises from rags to riches.
Eminem's career was just taking off when Grazer summoned the musician to his offices in Los Angeles.
"He wasn't a star at that time, but I felt he had enormous charisma and that he could be explosive as a film star. I didn't care that he'd never acted. His music videos spoke for themselves," says Grazer.
"I got him in my office and he just wouldn't talk. He wouldn't even look at me for about 15 minutes. When he finally started talking, he was fantastically articulate and eloquent."
Eminem liked the story Grazer and his writer Scott Silver had devised. It was the story of Jimmy Smith Jr., a white kid who was raised in a trailer park in an African-American suburb of Detroit.
It was obvious to everyone concerned with the project that, with a little tweaking, this could become Eminem's own story. The rapper is quick to point out the similarities.
"My character is really hot-headed which is how I used to be, and I guess still can be at times. His emotions constantly get the best of him," Eminem says in a short interview released by the studio.
In 8 Mile, Jimmy Smith Jr. is working a menial job in a factory to support himself while he competes in rap contests hoping to snag a record contract. Before he became rap's golden boy, Eminem was working as a short order cook earning $5.50 an hour and entering open-mike contests at the Hip-Hop Shop in Detroit.
"As soon as I grabbed the mike, I'd get booed but once (the crowd) heard me rhyme, they'd shut up," Eminem told Rolling Stone in 1999.
Eminem brought those early memories to the set of 8 Mile for the powerful rap contest sequences. To show Jimmy's pain at initially being rejected Eminem recalled how he felt all those times he didn't win.
"I remember if I lost a battle it would be like my entire world was crumbling. Other people didn't think it was such a big deal but I would feel like my whole life was over."
This could explain why 8 Mile plays like the Rocky of Rap. "It may look silly to a lot of people, but to a lot of us, it's our world."
To bridge the gap between the worlds o rap and movies, Eminem agreed to six weeks of intensive rehearsal with director Curtis Hanson, who had the rapper help audition actors for the film's minor roles. To get a feel for the gritty approach he planned to take with the movie, Hanson had Eminem watch everything from Robert De Niro's Raging Bull to Russell Crowe's Romper Stomper.
"Marshall gave me all a director could ask for from an actor from enormous talent, focus and dedication to a total commitment to the story we were trying to tell," recalls Hanson.
Brittany Murphy, who plays Eminem's love interest in 8 Mile, says "that he turns out to be an amazing actor shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. We've all seen how magnetic he is in his videos."
Grazer insists 8 Mile has universal appeal and is not just for fans of hip hop music.
"Just as you don't have to appreciate boxing to like Rocky or Raging Bull, you don't have to be a hip hop fan to appreciate 8 Mile. It's about human endurance, tenacity and about getting into the world and surviving it."