(AllHipHop News) Actor Jimmi Simpson is hoping his portrayal of detective Russell Poole in the new Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. TV murder mystery convinces viewers the top cop wasn’t nuts.
Poole was ostracised for linking the Los Angeles Police Department to Biggie’s death in 1996, but Simpson insists the late detective was really on to something – and he wants his latest role in “Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and Biggie” to hammer that home.
The cop spent a year trying to bring the heavyweight rapper, real name Christopher Wallace’s killer to justice, and he was among the first people to suggest the star’s death was linked to a plot involving a corrupt LAPD detective and Los Angeles hip-hop mogul Marion “Suge’ Knight,” who is currently in jail awaiting a possible murder trial in a separate incident.
“He (Poole) was one man, and the LAPD is a force,” Westworld star Simpson told Entertainment Tonight. “There’s a lot of voices, a lot of power, a lot of politics. And, the idea of Russell, in my opinion, has been far too… ‘This guy was nuts about this case… Overzealous’.
“This wasn’t some lunatic. This was a man trying to get the truth.”
“I wanted to be really truthful to Mr. Poole,” Simpson adds, revealing he studied interviews with the top cop. “I had all the material I needed. Just his mannerisms, just a couple ways that he moves, his vibration… I didn’t want to do an impression at all. I wanted to get that energy and to interpret it.”
Simpson even mapped out his character just like Poole would have studied a case: “I went to Rite-Aid and I got a bunch whiteboards, a bunch of calendars and I just broke the entire case like I thought Russell would have.”
Poole collapsed during a meeting with L.A. Homicide Bureau detectives in August 2015 and died from a suspected heart attack.
