R&B crooner Ne-Yo, after countless accolades in the music field, is playing a Marine who defends Los Angeles while aliens wreak havoc on the city in the Jonathan Liebesman film “Battle: Los Angeles.”
Ne-Yo sat down for a conference call Friday with university newspapers, including The Daily Reveille. The film will be released in theaters Friday, March 11, and also stars Michelle Rodriguez and Aaron Eckhart.
“We looked like actual Marines, and that was the goal,” Ne-Yo said. “To make sure that when the movie came out, a seasoned Marine could go see this and be like, ‘Oh, they know what they’re doing.'”
The film was predominantly shot in Baton Rouge and Shreveport from September 2009 to October 2010.
“I didn’t get to do a whole lot of hanging out,” Ne-Yo said. “I had a studio bus parked on the grounds of the hotel we were staying at, so I would go from set to the studio bus and record music. I didn’t get to experience the city as much as I would like to. I went to the Larry Flynt Hustler Club a couple of times. That was kinda fun.”
Preparing to play a Marine in “Battle: Los Angeles” did not require much preparation, but it was difficult, Ne-Yo said.
“We trained with actual Marines for three weeks,” Ne-Yo said. “They were basically training us as if we were real-life Marines. Waking up at five or six in the morning, jogging three, six miles every day, calisthenics and eating that disgusting food — it was terrible, but it was worth it.”
Working with Liebesman in the film was a fun and exhaustive experience, Ne-Yo said.
“Jonathan Liebesman is a slave driver,” Ne-Yo said. “He’s very much a perfectionist. But the end result is the best performance you could possibly get.”
Though Ne-Yo does not believe an alien invasion is a realistic event in the near future, he did say viewers will learn life lessons from the film.
“I can definitely see how it could make somebody live life to the fullest,” Ne-Yo said. “One lesson to be learned is that life is very short and anything can happen, so don’t put anything off tomorrow that you can do today.”
After winning three Grammys and dabbling in acting, Ne-Yo said he wanted to try something different and challenge himself.
“Music runs through my veins. Acting, though it’s fun to have a respect for it—it’s just an interesting hobby right now, something that I’m trying,” Ne-Yo said. “I believe in expansion and growth and trying new things. [Acting] is just another form of self expression.”
But Ne-Yo also pushed himself musically while filming in Baton Rouge. Ne-Yo finished recording his lastest album, “Libra Scale,” in the parking lot of his hotel.
Ne-Yo is currently working on his new untitled fifth LP. Ne-Yo said love will be the inspiration for the project.
“Love is always the inspiration,” Ne-Yo said. “Love is one of those things that will never go out of style, so you will always find that thread in any album that I do.”
During the interview, Ne-Yo said he does not like how some artists abuse Auto-Tune.
“Auto-Tune is like training wheels,” Ne-Yo said. “If you’re a singer, take the damn training wheels off and sing.”
 
 
 
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