Nearly four months since releasing a brief teaser clip, Kid Cudi drops off a Halloween treat: A short horror film for the Shia Labeouf-directed "MANIAC," inspired by the Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager record of the same name. Watch the Cage-assisted thriller now.
EXCLUSIVE: Kid Cudi talks about working Shia LaBeouf, his character in MANIAC, and how he funded the short film in our bonus interview.
Click next page to see the bonus interview with Kid Cudi
Working With Shia LaBeouf
“Shia reached out to Cage—a good buddy of mine—and told him, ‘Hey, I wanna do a video for ‘Maniac.’’ Cage hit me up and told me and I was like, ‘Oh word. That’s crazy. Tell him to hit me up.’ So we talked about it and he gave me his idea and I loved it. I was like, ‘Whoa. This is so intense.’
On His Character In The Video
“It was me creating the back story for this person in my mind. What you see just seems like senseless acts of crime happening but in my character’s mind it was always justified. When you watch it, it’s like, ‘Why are these things happening?’ You want answers but there’s no answers really given. When I was in character, it was always justified for me.
On Funding The Video
“The whole thing cost a nice amount of money. We split it down the middle, paid for it ourselves and I didn’t have to ask the label for anything. It was like, ‘Alright, this is my baby. This is my little side project I’m doing which is completely separate from a music video kind of thing to promote a song.’ It was like, ‘This is really just a side project that I’m doing.’
Speaking in French
“Shia had this idea that were kind of going to shoot it in France and then it was like, ‘Okay, let’s not shoot it in France. Let’s just speak French.’ I was like, ‘Okay cool. I’m with that.’ It just adds more shock value.
