Art imitates life in the Apple TV+ movie Die Like a Man. Speaking to ABC Audio, Cory Hardrict, who plays a recently paroled gangster in LA, recalls the interaction his cast had with real-life gangsters in the east side of the city.
“I remember when we shot this movie, we were shooting in East LA and we were shooting in a neighborhood where like the real gang bangers were like trying to tax the set, like saying, they can’t shoot over here unless you pay ’em,” he says. “And I had my braids, I had the teardrop. And you know, they [had] the real teardrops and stuff.”
“It was kind of frightening and entertaining at the same time, like dealing with that,” Cory adds. He says “everybody was scared,” including the security guards, the police, the filmmakers and the actors.
However, he says the experience “brought, like, an authenticity to the set because we felt like we had to really make something good. If we gonna be using the community, we couldn’t like do nothing that they felt like, ‘OK, this ain’t it.’”
Die Like a Man is a coming-of-age story about Freddy, a teen who attempts to prove himself as a man to his mentor, Solo, and the local tribe of gangsters, taking instruction that eventually leads him down a path of destruction.
When asked what advice he’d give Freddy, Cory replied, “Listen to your mom … mother’s instincts always know best.”
“You can actually do something positive. And even if you start off negative, it’s never too late to turn it around,” he continues. “Get a good support system, support friends. And just stay away from negativity.“
Cory says he’d also tell Freddy to “think things through.”
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