![]() PM: We wanted to shoot the reality of what’s going on down there. I said okay-but we had to do it right then because I had two movies coming up, and that was the only window I had. Then last year, after the last Fugees concert, which was also in L.A., he said I should just go in and do it, since I was the unlikeliest candidate. ![]() So we wanted someone to go inside, but we couldn’t find anyone. We thought it wouldn’t be effective unless someone really experienced it. First we thought about just going in there, talking to people and documenting the whole thing, but that was gonna be boring. One of my friends lives a couple blocks away from Skid Row, and he started talking about it. Pras Michel: About three years ago, I was playing Scrabble with some friends in L.A. Mother Jones: How did the idea for the movie come about? Only once did someone say, “You look like Pras!” -Alan Light But the 34-year-old found that once he went from the rope line to the soup line, he could move among the dispossessed with relative ease. He’s kept busy since the group split he’s been in numerous movies, and his latest album, Experience, is due out this fall. Michel introduced Lauryn Hill to Wyclef Jean and put the Fugees in motion the trio’s 1996 album, The Score, is one of the best selling hip-hop albums ever. It was a long way from the world he’d grown used to. Michel spent nine days on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, hidden cameras tracking him as he panhandled, dodged rats, watched a junkie shoot up, and slept in a doorway after his tent was stolen. With his new documentary, Skid Row, Pras Michel-best known as one-third of the Fugees-lived out Sturges’ fictional experiment. In 1941, Preston Sturges released Sullivan’s Travels-a classic film about an earnest Hollywood filmmaker who goes undercover as a hobo. Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
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