"Higher Learning"'s Malik Williams may have been played by Omar Epps, but according to writer and director John Singleton, he wrote the role of Malik with the late Tupac Shakur in mind. Around the same time, Shakur was charged with sexual assault in New York and with the shooting of two off-duty cops in Atlanta. The rapper and actor was then fatally shot in 1994, which was the year before "Higher Learning" was released. "The original cast to "Higher Learning" was supposed to be Tupac, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Juliette Lewis," Singleton explained to Vibe in November 2011. "'Pac ended up getting in trouble and then all that stuff happened in New York. It was logistically impossible."