Janet Jackson Speaks On Getting Her First Big Screen Opportunity Alongside Tupac Shakur For 1993 Classic 'Poetic Justice'

Despite winning countless awards and releasing seven more top-selling albums (including 'Rhythm Nation 1814' (1989), 'Janet' (1993) and 'The Velvet Rope' (1997), Jackson still wanted to be in films.

'My dream was to go back into acting,' she says. 'That was all I wanted to do. When I was a kid I told my father that's what I wanted my career to be. I wanted to go to college, study acting and become an actress. He said, "No, you're going to sing.'

In 1993 the director John Singleton offered her her first starring role in Poetic Justice, in which she played the love interest of Tupac Shakur.

'Pac was just silly,' Jackson says of the late rapper, who was shot dead in Las Vegas three years after the film's release. 'He was completely different from what people knew.

'Not that it was an act, the person that the world knew, because that was him, too. I adored him; he liked to play and laugh.

'I remember when he said he was going back into LA to get a tattoo. And, I said, "Why are you going to LA? We're not supposed to leave, we have to shoot tomorrow."

'He looked at me and said, "Square!' she says, laughing. 'When he came back he showed me the tattoo he got on his stomach. He was sweet. Granted, there was another side, but he wouldn't just snap or go crazy out of nowhere.

There had to be something that triggered that. I miss him,' she says softly.