Eminem Remembers '8 Mile' Director Curtis Hanson

(Radio.com) Eminem has paid tribute to Curtis Hanson, the director of the Eminem biopic 8 Mile, who died of 'natural causes" on Tuesday at his Hollywood Hills home. He was 71.

Eminem remembers the Oscar winner fondly saying, '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," he told Billboard.

In a 2002 interview with Rolling Stone, Hanson, who won a screenwriting Oscar for L.A. Confidential and directed the psychological thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, spoke about working with Eminem.

"I knew going into it that he had experience performing and also adopting a character, Slim Shady," Hanson said. "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." Read more here.

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