Diddy convinced Luke to star in 'Notorious'

Rex Features

Derek Luke has revealed that a phone call from Sean 'Diddy' Combs convinced him to star as the hip-hop mogul in Notorious.

Luke admitted that his reluctance to appear as Diddy in the biopic of late rapper Christopher 'Biggie Smalls' Wallace was down to a lack of preparation time.

He said: "I was the last person cast. I had a week, Jamal (Woolard, who plays Smalls) had like six months. I wish I had six months. As a matter of fact, I kind of turned the project down a few times because I felt like I didn't have enough time... I wanted to do it right.

"It wasn't until I got the call from Mr Combs that I decided this was the thing to do. I didn't want to mess it up.

"I'll do anybody else's story, but I did not want to do this story because it's like Biggie's not dead, so I didn't want to touch it."

Notorious B.I.G., whose hits include 'Hypnotize' and 'Mo Money Mo Problems', was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1997.