Though the hip-hop luminary known as Common is talking to us from Los Angeles, “near Hollywood,” he assures he hasn’t totally gone Hollywood. But Common is now fully dedicated to establishing himself as an actor, and he’s off to a rousing start in ‘07 with this month’s supercharged, star-studded mob thriller “Smokin’ Aces”. Later this year he’ll co-star with A-listers Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster”. Not bad for a “rapper-actor.”

URB: Have you long wanted to act?
Common: I can’t say since I was a kid I wanted to act. In fact, I remember being in a play and my mother kept talking about my friends’ performances instead of mine. So I wasn’t in any more plays after that, or thinking about an acting career, until I started doing music and started feeling like I could expand …