Zaytoven Talks New Movie ‘Birds Of A Feather,’ Meeting Migos And Working With Drake, Gucci Mane And Chief Keef

How autobiographical is the movie?
I’d give it about 60 percent. We add a lot of drama, we add a lot of things that happen in the music industry that didn’t happen to me, but that happens to a lot of other people, so we added that. But it was about 60 percent true.

Tell me about making the movie. What were some of the challenges?
We probably shot the movie in maybe a month and a half, just shooting. It was more fun than anything. To get all the guys I do music with and say, hey I want you guys to have a part in this movie, and here are your lines, try to learn them right now—ain’t nobody have scripts and have to go home and learn and practice and none of that, we just kinda had a guideline with us and said this is your part, this is mine, let’s practice our lines and then just do it in maybe 45 minutes. So we just had a ball doing it. And I feel like that was what made it unique. It was just us really using our own personalities and using that as our main way of acting. As far as challenges, there wasn’t really any challenges, everybody supported me to do it, anytime I called anyone they showed up, so it was really more fun than anything.

So you would just hit up Gucci or Shawty and they’d come through?
Yeah, and I hit ‘em up same day, too, it wasn’t like I’d hit them up two, three days before. It was more like, “Man, I’m at the mall, who would be good for this scene right here? Shawty Lo, let me call up Shawty Lo—’Hey man, we’re shooting this scene, can you come through?’” And he’d be like, “I’ll be there in an hour. Let’s do it.”

How was it acting alongside such an experienced actor such as Gucci Mane?
Gucci’s almost as experienced as I am! [Laughs] He’s done some acting roles before, but you know, we built our careers together, so acting with him was like nothing at all, because we naturally talk to each other and be around each other, so that was really easy and a real comfortable situation.

Did you happen to catch him in Spring Breakers?
Yeah, I seen him, yeah. That’s just Gucci Mane; he’s funny all the way around the board, he’s hilarious.

What kind of reception did you have for the movie?
I’ve had nothing but good responses, there’s not one negative thing [that's been said]. It’s been a great experience; everyone’s very supportive, they saying they watching it over and over again. It helped brand me and expand me in other ways, so it’s been a great move for me. I’m gonna be the Tyler Perry of making independent films having to do with music. I’m starting my next one in two months. It’s gonna be called Finesse and it’s more of a comedy, ’cause in this music industry there’s a lot of finesse and a lot of people doing under the table stuff to make money and a lot of that stuff going on in the music industry. So I wanted to make a movie pertaining to that, but make it a comedy. Because it’s funny when you really think about what people do, and act like who they know and like they somebody that they ain’t to make some money and get positions in this industry, and a lot of times it works. People can finesse their way to the top just off of acting like they something more than they are.