Pardison Fontaine joined the cast of Power Book III: Raising Kanan for the current fourth season, and he says it was something 50 Cent's online antics couldn't stop him from doing.
"Acting is something I've always wanted to do. ... I was just grateful to be given the opportunity, honestly," he tells Vibe. "As soon as the script came across my desk, I liked it so much. I liked the idea so much that I read for it twice, honestly. There were two different roles I went for. So I'm just happy to be a part of it."
Pardi takes on the role of B-Rilla, "a raw, volatile, and incredibly talented young rapper serving a prison sentence for armed robbery" who Lou (Malcolm Mays) is interested in signing, according to Deadline.
Though he writes raps for a living, Pardi tells Vibe he credits battle rapper DNA for some of the lyrics his character spits on Raising Kanan. "He took the lead on a lot of the songs and then I was just able to come in and put little changes here or there," he says. "But I think DNA did a lot of the heavy lifting on that."
He adds he enjoyed rapping differently than he's used to and liked "cursing out people [and] saying stuff that [he] wouldn't typically say." The "most challenging" part of the experience, Pardi tells Vibe, was not getting "immediate feedback."
"In music, you get to record it [and] you hear it right away. You’re able to critique and change things as you see fit,” he explains. “With acting, they do the take [and] you really don’t get a chance to look at it. You get a chance to do it over and over, but you can’t see it.”
“It makes you a little nervous, but they do such a terrific job that it’s like it all works out for the best,” Pardi says.
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