Jamal Woolard, who plays Notorious B.I.G. in the upcoming biopic Notorious, is known for his own rap career under the name Gravy, though it's been pointed out here and there that he is also known as "the guy who got shot in the ass near radio station Hot 97 in 2006 but went upstairs and gave an interview on the Funkmaster Flex show anyway." In a 2006 New Yorker piece, Ben McGrath described Woolard as "an enormous man—well over six feet, and more than three hundred pounds—with a caboose to match", and gave him a chance to explain what happened. He and his entourage were heading for the station for a scheduled on-air interview when, "after I got a sandwich and came out of the store—da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da!...The only thing I remember is falling, and knowing that I’m shot—just don’t know where. It’s not like, when you get shot, ‘Oh, I got shot here.’ Nah. You know you hit, so your mind frame is—you pumped, your adrenaline is going. I reach my hand over, and I see I’m bleeding. I didn’t see the hole. I can’t see behind my ass.” A lesser man would have been sufficiently overcome with curiosity to seek out a mirror, but Woolard went right upstairs and did the interview. He didn't mention that he'd been shot, and nobody appeared to guess; Joell Ortiz, who participated with him in an on-air freestyle session, recalled that he "seemed relaxed up there, and he killed it when called on to rhyme,” “Nobody knew what the situation was," Gravy explained to McGrath, "because I didn’t want it to be known. I was there to do my job, so I did my job. Now, to people it looks like ‘Well, you got shot. And you still went in there and did your job?’ Like, O.K., let’s put the shoe on the other foot. What was I supposed to tell a powerful influence like Flex, at Hot 97? ‘You know what, Flex? I’m sorry, man. I can’t do the show. I was standing downstairs—got shot in the ass.’" Unfortunately, when he finished up and came downstairs, he was met by a bunch of cops, who'd been summoned to the scene by people who'd heard the gunshots and couldn't figure out why, with all those shell casings on the sidewalk, there weren't any bodies anywhere. Woolard was taken to the hospital, where someone who'd labored long and hard to get a medical degree found that the bullet had passed cleanly through his flesh and was jostling around in his shoe.

The incident got poor Gravy banned from Hot 97, which has a strict policy of discouraging talent from shooting or getting shot in the vicinity of the station. Fortunately, as McGrath notes in a brief follow-up piece, this bump in the road to musical success gave him an excuse to take up acting, at a time when a role to which he might seem uniquely well-suited happened to be on the market. Woolard was chosen from among thousands of appplicants who turned out at an open audition last year, though there are now rumors that he had the role in the bag the whole time and the auditions were just intended as a publicity stunt. Voletta Wallace, the mother of the actual Christopher Wallace, A.K.A. Notorious B.I.G., is one of the film's producers, and she is said to have exclaimed, "That's my son" upon first laying eyes on Wollard--a great biopic moment if ever there was one. In the movie, she is played by Angela Bassett; after shooting a scene where she was required to slap the taste out of her movie son's mouth, Woolard testified through his swollen cheeks, “She’s for real. Can’t be faking that. It could affect sales.” Real is hard work. McGrath writes that "Woolard spent five months in 'Biggie boot camp,' taking acting lessons, studying choreography, and even receiving voice training at Juilliard. Woolard is diabetic, and the long days were physically draining. At one point, he lost his double chin, and had to eat his way back into the role. 'Now I’m at three hundred and five,' he said, attacking a plate of chicken and rice like an offensive lineman at a training table. 'Doing what I got to do. He said that he was thinking about going on a diet after shooting wrapped, to create a “whole new identity” in time for his comeback. “So when the film comes out and I hit that red carpet, I’m all Rocky and ripped up, and people just be, like, What the fuck?'"