How 'Ozark' Made that Surprising Killer Mike Cameo Happen

In Summer 2020, when Ozark showrunner Chris Mundy began writing the script for episode 8 of Season 4, Part 2, he had two certainties: He was going to need Ozark music supervisor Gabe Hilfer to clear a lot of Illmatic songs, and he needed Run The Jewels rapper Killer Mike. Mundy wanted to use Ruth Langmore's love of hip-hop from previous episodes to explore how she processes the grief of losing her cousin, Wyatt, at the end of Season 4, Part 1. In previous episodes, the sounds of Notorious B.I.G. and Wu-Tang Clan were confined to her headphones when she wanted a reprieve from the outside world of the Byrde family's money-laundering operation, one that wiped out most of her family and had her tortured at gunpoint. Hip-Hop was an escape in previous episodes; it's a memory cocoon in episode 8 of Season 4, Part 2.

The second part of Ozark's final season picks up just after Ruth's piercingly terrifying declaration to the Byrdes that she intended to kill cartel hothead Javier "Javi" Elizondro for murdering Wyatt. After the tears dried and the realization of what she must do sets in, her gaze turns catatonic. The first part of her plan, before even starting her Jeep in search of Javi, is to pop Nas' debut album Illmatic into the disc player and press play. Throughout her revenge road trip, Nas' audio journal of surviving his upbringing in Queensbridge, New York, is on loop as she falls in and out of daydreams about killing Javi and memories of Wyatt as a refuge from her own precarious childhood. When she accidentally stumbles upon Killer Mike at a Chicago restaurant, he helps keep her in that zone.

“I just wanted it to be her stuck in a memory loop, and something that was keeping her in a zone,” Mundy explained to Men's Health. “But, I wanted a way to speak about it without being super on the nose. I just wanted it to be a quick scene between two people who love music.”

Mike was a natural fit for Ozark. Not only is Mundy a self-proclaimed fan, but Mike’s music has also appeared in the end credits of numerous episodes. There’s a good chance a large subset of people will forever associate Run The Jewels’s song “Ooh La La” with the gruesome murder of cartel lawyer Helen Pierce at the end of Season 3—since it played directly after the plot-shifting moment. “Playing Run The Jewels in the season finale as someone’s brain gets blown out is fucking cinema,” Mike proudly proclaims.

Getting Run the Jewels music onto Ozark and writing Killer Mike into the show's universe was easy; it was getting him on camera that had the Emmy-nominated showrunner “crossing my fingers that he'd be willing to come around and actually do it.” Little did Mundy know that serendipity guaranteed Killer Mike’s involvement years before a word of Ozark was ever written. A decade ago, before she was the lethally pragmatic Byrde matriarch Wendy, Laura Linney played Cathy Jamison in the Showtime dramedy The Big C, a character Mike deeply admired. Then, fate intervened. “I rode a plane with her one night, and I remember bothering her about how much of a fan of hers my wife was,” Mike recalled. “We traded contacts and stayed cool. When Ozark came out, I showed love because it was dope, deep, dark, and felt like it could happen anywhere in America at any time.”

Maybe Mike would’ve still been an Ozark fan without becoming text pals with one of the show’s biggest stars. But, as far as Mike is concerned, he wouldn’t have been on the show’s radar if he never entered Linney’s orbit (“Laura is really the wizard behind the curtain who made that happen”). So, when he was given the script, he agreed to appear in the show before a question could leave his agent’s mouth.

Mike is no stranger to the camera, having appeared in films and shows since the 2006 movie ATL, along with developing and hosting the Netflix docuseries Trigger Warning with Killer Mike and PBS's Love and Respect w/ Killer Mike. He was still eager to sharpen his acting craft when they shot his Ozark scene in Atlanta in Summer 2021, when the world found out he'd be appearing on the show. Mike isn't ashamed to admit it took him six takes to get it right, because Julia Garner (who plays Ruth) and the episode's director, Amanda Marsalis, were gracious in helping bring something new out of him with each take. Mundy, who wasn't on set when Mike filmed his scenes, remembers the hip-hop veteran endearing himself to the cast and crew ("I was getting bombarded with texts and photos from Julia [Garner] and Amanda Marsalis"). Mike still remembers getting acting lessons from an Emmy-winning actress nearly a year later.

“What [Garner] really taught me was, past the words and the message you see in the words, get in touch with the feeling you’re trying to express. She was kind about it and relaxed. I saw her go in and out of character at the snap of a finger,” he says. “That let me know I was working with a pro. Instead of being intimidated, I trusted her to walk me through it a couple of times and shake the nerves and anxiety off. I appreciate her greatly.”

Mike's 90-second appearance in the episode influences our outlook on arguably the most popular character in Ozark, because the world Mundy and Ozark have spent the last five years uniquely crafting only works if everyone who enters it plays a role in the central machinations of the show, celebrity or not. Sure, iconic rock band REO Speedwagon performed in the third season. But before they played a single note or appeared on screen for a single second, their manager worked out a deal with Marty to help the Byrdes launder money through the band's merchandise sales from the show.

Mike's scene dealt with breaking down the hopeful despair Nas paints on Illmatic, a feeling Ruth knows all too well. When Ruth says Nas sounds like he "hates it and misses it all at once," she's also speaking about herself, a young woman raised in a dysfunctional family who she still dreams about spending time in a trailer park that no amount of money can make her leave. This one conversation explains why a white woman in the middle of nowhere America listens to hip-hop music made hundreds of miles from where she grew up and years before she was born. Through Mike's hip-hop connection with Ruth, viewers learn about a character who doesn't typically invite people into her thoughts.

While Mike agrees with what he said on-screen, the insight wasn't his own. It was Mundy's view of an album he's loved since it came out in 1994. He did make sure Mike agreed with it, sending the rapper the script beforehand, "because I wanted him to be able to call BS on anything I wrote." To his delight, Mike not only agreed, but was also impressed. “He really got to the meat of it and added some perspective that others may not have thought about. He did a fine job as a fan of Nas and hip-hop, representing the depth of what Nas was saying in that song," Mike said.

Ozark won't be the last time you see Mike on screen. He's currently writing two shows and has a few roles in upcoming projects he can't speak on yet. His acting aspirations are grand (“I want to embody characters for TV or film that help people understand or feel a certain emotion), and his inspirations are legendary (“I’d like to be talented enough to play the roles Forest Whitaker has played"). No matter what he does in the future, he can always say he was the first and only rapper to appear on Ozark, and the first and only one to use the beautiful language of hip-hop to translate the emotions of one of TV's most captivating characters of the last decade.

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