There's no more of an excuse for blaming other people or the world for at least not trying what you should be trying.

We [with Brandy Burre ] like fifteen feet away from each other. You can see my house and my car in pretty much every exterior shot in the movie. It was like filming at my extended house. My kids and her kids are the same age and they're best friends. Every summer they play with each other. We were intensely close friends beforehand in part because we take care of each other's kids.

When you have any kind of success in life, that's like the most dangerous moment that you're in because you're going to tend to think wow, I can just keep repeating what I've done. I'm a great person. People love me. All of the sudden they're giving me all of this attention. You get drunk on it and you lose your sense of balance and your sense of detachment. I know it's happened to me.

For as one star another far exceeds, So souls in heaven are placed by their deeds.

Still uncertain as to our identity, we think that what matters in the work world is gaining attention and making friends. And these misconceptions and naïveté are brutally exposed in the light of the real world.

Jay-Z is more naturally gifted. He didn't depend as much as 50 did on his personal story. Jay-Z has a great story, he came from a pretty rough background. But 50's early success was so much fueled on the story and where he came from. With Jay-Z, I feel he has a more natural gift for language and for music itself. 50 really had to study and work at it much harder.

To be strategic in life is like any skill whether it's basketball or learning a language, it takes effort and practice and I think most people don't think that it's something that they could just do, you know, naturally.