Action Bronson and Jonah Hill Explore First Impressions, Musical Progression and Cooking

Jonah Hill sits down with Action Bronson for Interview magazine. Engaging in playful back-and-forth banter discussing a number of topics, including first impressions, humorous stories, musical progression and cooking, Jonah Hill begins with an excerpt on how he stumbled upon Action Bronson’s music through word-of-mouth from a close friend. Enamored with Bronson’s playful, laid-back tunes in addition to his flair and culinary knowledge, Hill breaks down Bronson’s approach to creating music as the two discuss the similarities between acting and rapping. View select excerpts from the interview below and check out the full feature over at Interview magazine.

So, three or four years ago, my buddy Dave Appleton, who is up on all hip-hop stuff before anyone knows about it, hips me to Bronson. This was before Fuck, That’s Delicious. He showed me some kind of YouTube show of you cooking with this very hip-hop dialect and extreme knowledge of the culinary arts. [Bronson laughs] I was already in, and then he started playing your music, and I was … It was all I listened to for, like, three months straight. There’s a lot one can say about you to someone who has no knowledge of you: born in Queens; Albanian; former chef. And that’s how I pitch you to people who are stupid and don’t know who you are. But then I go, “You got to see him to believe him.” My work as a fan has been to just share the gospel with as many people as I could.

That’s fucking incredible right there. That’s quite an introduction.

And it’s been beautiful to watch you embracing your own eccentricities and your own individuality on the new album. And the music is getting better because of it.

I’ve been rapping since I’ve been on the internet. My first couple of songs are on there, with a video from when I was younger. So I’ve kind of grown up in front of people. They can trace back, and I think people are very excited about where I am now. And, honestly, the type of artist that I am now is exactly what you say: I’m growing into myself. I don’t really have outside influence from the game. I want to be totally different. I am totally different from everybody else already, so I just have to be myself. You can’t follow the pack in this type of game. People write roles for you, for actors and stuff like that, but if someone found out someone was writing my raps, it’d be like the fucking end of the world. I’m just starting to get in the groove of things. I haven’t totally hit my stride yet, so there’s a lot more to come. I can sit in the big living room right here on a nice fucking leather couch from Jennifer Convertibles, and just get to do what I got to do. [laughs]

The movies I’ve done that have felt big to me, the ones where people have a lot of pressure behind them or are telling me, “This is how it has to be done …” while I’m doing it, I have that pit in my stomach knowing that it’s not going to be my most elevated stuff.

It’s the same shit for me. Exactly. If you don’t like it, no one else is going to like it. If you’re really into it, and you’re feeling good about things, you have space to create, let your mind flow, let things happen naturally when they want to happen—not with someone telling you to do it, and then you try too hard, and then you fuck up. Nothing good ever comes from that type of shit. That’s why I took a little bit longer to do this record, because I had to work at my own pace and do what I wanted to do. I’ll never get out of my zone again with music. I was in a bad fucking mind frame, snapped out of it—boom, boom, boom, we’re here now. I learned my lesson.