Working At The Car Wash

"I can't dance for sh-t," Dr. Dre says, wiping sweat from his forehead. It's 5:37 p.m. on a Monday night in May, and he's on the Paramount studios lot in Hollywood. He just completed filming a take of a scene in The Wash in which he and Snoop Dogg are partying with their dates. In the comedy directed by DJ Pooh, the hip-hop icons star as roommates who start beefing when they begin working at the same car wash and Dre's character becomes Snoop's boss.

New to the film world, Dre's not as comfortable in front of the camera as Snoop, who has more than a half-dozen films to his credit. While Snoop and the girls joke during a break between shoots, Dre rehearses his lines. "OK, I'm supposed to go to the fridge? There's supposed to be some ice?" he asks, opening the refrigerator door and knocking a bottle of Hennessey onto the floor.

But when a production assistant puts a box of chicken on the kitchen table, Snoop starts cracking on his girl, portrayed by Dr. Dre's R&B protégé Truth Hurts. "All I know is that I'm getting some ass tonight. I done bought you Popeyes, chips, and weed!" Snoop says while doing a comedic rendition of the Harlem Shake that has everyone howling.

"We trying to make this movie as funny as possible, so we pull out all the tricks, and the stops," Snoop says later, now sitting in the bedroom of his trailer. His protégés Bad Azz, the Eastsidaz' Tray Deee, and D.P.G members Daz and Kurupt are among the 10 people crammed into the smoke-filled living room that's rocking from Tray Deee and Bad Azz's heated argument. "That's real sh-t going on in there," Snoop tells the set publicist. "You might hear a gunshot in a minute."

But all is calm in Dre's space. He's talking with his acting coach and cooling out to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On deluxe two-CD set. "I felt like with me, Snoop, and Pooh knowing each other for as long as we've known each other, we'd be able to have fun in this movie," Dre says about taking on his first comedic acting role.

And though Dre complains that his character is a scrub who gets "no ass," is threatened at gunpoint several times, and has to ride the bus, he's still having fun. It's just the dancing he hates. Now 7:14 p.m., during one final take of the house party scene, the lines are done, but Funkadelic's "Knee Deep" is still blaring, cameras are still rolling, and Snoop and the girls are still partying. However, an exasperated Dre is finished. "Goddamn Pooh!" he hollers, sparking an eruption of laughter. "Cut! My bad. I didn't want to stop you," a mischievous Pooh says. Dre gives his forehead another wipedown, takes a sip of his drink, and walks off the set, rambling, "I got my Tae Bo on and sh-t!" True, and he's also got a definite outtake for The Wash's DVD.

By Billy JohnsonJr @ Launch.com