‘8 Mile’ Director Curtis Hanson Passes Away

Curtis Hanson, who directed 8 Mile, L.A. Confidential and more, has passed at the age of 71 of a reported heart attack. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ that paramedics were called to the filmmakers Hollywood Hills home Tuesday afternoon (Sept. 20) where he was pronounced dead at the scene.

In a statement provided to Billboard, Eminem, who starred in 8 Mile, the film based on his life, said, "Curtis Hanson believed in me and our crazy idea to make a rap battle movie set in Detroit. He basically made me into an actor for 8 Mile. I'm lucky I got to know him." Em won a Best Original Song Oscar that year for "Lose Yourself," joining Hanson, who himself had won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1998 for L.A. Confidential.

In a 2002 interview with Rolling Stone, Hanson said of working with Em, "I knew going into it that he had experience performing and also adopting a character, Slim Shady. What I was looking for was actually the opposite of that. When you adopt a characterization, that's artificial. You hide behind that. What I needed in this story was the appearance of a complete lack of artifice. I needed the appearance of one more or less exposing himself emotionally."

Hanson as well said that he was conscious not to box the film in as a "rap movie." "Hip-hop movies usually illustrate the lyrics of certain kinds of hip-hop songs," he said. "You have a lot of guns, you have a lot of drugs and so forth. Our story is about hip-hop fans. They don't live the life that is depicted in hip-hop lyrics, but they identify of the emotion of those lyrics."

Hanson last directed 2012's Chasing Mavericks.

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