NEW YORK -- There he was back on a gurney staring at the bright lights, bleeding profusely and thinking about his own death. "The blood was flowing out of my stomach, out of my leg and out of my left cheek, where I was shot in the face," says Curtis Jackson a k a hip-hop superstar 50 Cent.

He was shot nine times. Nine. Most people don't survive one shot.

"I remember I was on that gurney being wheeled into an operating room. I was strapped down and I couldn't move. That's what I remember about the day when I was really shot," says 50 Cent. "Last year, it was the same scene all over again. But then I reached over to the blood running down my face and I had to smile. "This wasn't my blood. It was only movie blood," he says. "That's the kind, you can just wipe away." His new movie doesn't fake much else.

In "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," opening Wednesday, he plays himself and it's quite a life story. He grew up on the rough streets of Jamaica, Queens, where his mother was a drug dealer and his father was non-existent. When his mother is brutally burned alive, the young boy in the film becomes a dealer in order to survive and buy himself new sneakers.

He found himself shot nine times, which isn't a Hollywood invention. It was just another night in the real life of the 30- year-old 50 Cent. But he came back to life, which is what interested director Jim Sheridan.

"To me, 50 Cent is a black gangsta Jesus with the wounds to prove it," Sheridan says.

"It was very emotional for me to act out the scene where I'm shot and left for dead," 50 Cent says. "But at least it wasn't a hard acting exercise. I'm someone who knows what it's like to lay in the middle of the street in a pool of blood. I know what it's like to be shot in the face. I know."

Sitting in his suite at the Essex House hotel on a Sunday morning, the rapper with the fierce eyes and tattoo-covered frame looks like a big, sweet kid in a red jersey, black baggy pants and a baseball cap. You can see the scar a few inches from his lips, where he was shot in the face, but it's fading. He wears a huge diamond cross around his neck and his fingers carry enough bling that maybe his name should be 50 Thousand. Three large bodyguards stand outside the door.

First, it's 50 Cent who wants to ask the questions.

"Are people liking the new movie? Really? Are you sure they're liking it?"

Insecurity doesn't seem likely for a former drug dealer who has done time. He explains there are two versions of his persona.

"I always had to be two people," he says. "I'm my grandmother's baby in the house, or at times like this when I'm talking to you. That's Curtis Jackson. And then there is the other man who knows how to be aggressive enough to get by in the streets."

The combination seems to be working well. His CD "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" debuted at No. 1 and sold 7.3 million copies. The hard-core rapper got started when Eminem signed him to a seven-figure deal in 2002 and made him one of the most talked-about figures in the history of the music industry. He has lived his own lyrics, including dealing, guns, stabbings, prison and other horrors. His story comes with the biceps, the washboard stomach, and those tattoos. He knows his own popularity.

"You can spin the globe and wherever you stop, I can go there and sell out a show," he boasts.

But can he sell a movie?

"I hope people are ready for the truth," he says. "I know I was ready. This movie was even therapeutic for me. It was good for me to be in some of those spaces again."

50 Cent had plenty more truth-telling in him and gamely chatted more about the movie, the 'hood, his young son and his gangsta past.

Q. Are you psyched about your big studio movie coming out next week?

A. I'm very excited. I was nervous about doing this movie. There were many scenes I really had to think about doing because this is my life. I did things in this movie that I wouldn't do regularly in a movie.

Q. Like the naked shower scene?

A. Oh, you got me on that one. It was tough to get naked and go in the shower. I'll never forget that day. The scene in the movie is when I'm in jail and about to go into the shower. Jim Sheridan thought he'd shoot the scene with the guys in towels. But Jim pulled me to the side and said, "50, do you think you'd take it all off?" I was like, "All right, I'll do it." Then Terrence Howard, who is in the scene with me, said, "I'll do it with you." All of a sudden, we were standing there naked.

Q. The film has already caused some controversy for its gangsta violence. What is the line between hip-hop glorifying violence and just being art?

A. I'm not glorifying violence. I'm just trying to capture what goes on in the environment. If your environment is violent as a child, you will write about these things in your songs and talk about them in your first movie. I hear this criticism that many rappers have too many songs about someone being shot. For me, it's not about just putting violence in the music. It's about striving to capture in the perfect song what goes on in the street. You don't think this is going on in the streets? I'd like to get the records of the hospitals in my area of the Bronx for just one week. There will be far more victims of violent crimes -- stab wounds, gun shot wounds, or whatever it is -- than many people even think happens. If anything this music and my movie is just saying that this is happening in America.

Q. What do you hope kids growing up in the projects or in tough circumstances get from your life story?

A. Anyone from the streets, which is where I'm from, will either be inspired by my life or envy it. I hope they see options from my life story.

Q. Last week, Paramount had to remove billboards for your movie that showed you holding a gun. School principals rallied and said this was a terrible message for kids. What is your take on this marketing decision?

A. I feel like there are standards placed on music stars that aren't placed on any other forms of entertainment. There hasn't been an album release with a gun on the cover since 1997. For having a piece of glass that was broken and a holster on me [for an album cover], they said I was supporting gun culture in "Get Rich or Die Tryin'." I feel there is a double standard because no one has a problem with guns in films. If you go into a Blockbuster, look at the DVD shelf. You'll find more guns on covers than people's faces.

Q. Switching to your movie for a second, it clearly is your life story with all the emotionally devastating moments, including your mother dealing drugs, her being killed, your dealing drugs and then being shot. Why be so honest? Why put it all out there?

A. It's the same concept of what Eminem did in "8 Mile." He put all his defects and his character out there. It's everything people could use against him. But he put it out there for everybody to know because when you do that you're no longer vulnerable. Hip-hop is competitive. Now they can make reference to my life, and everyone will already know what happened. I'm not vulnerable anymore.

Q. Are you acting or just playing yourself in this film?

A. I do want to clear one thing up here. Some people say that because I was making a film about my life that I wasn't really acting. I still had to deliver the dialogue like everyone else in the scene. Of course, I do have an advantage. I know how I was feeling at a specific time.

Q. Can you believe you survived your own life?

A. Yep, I believe it. For me, I spent a large portion of my life being the only person who believed in my ideas. Even my grandparents -- and I love them to death -- after I got shot, they looked at me like, 'Oh, man, he's still here?' Sometimes when I was a kid, I'd mumble lyrics, and my grandparents would look at me like I was just buggin' out. So I had to believe in me, 'cause no one else would believe in me. That's how I survived it all.

Q. In the film, you're told the rules of drug dealing? What are your rules in life these days?

A. For me, I start with not believing anything is impossible. My grandparents had the largest asset in our family, which was their home. It was worth about $220,000. When they bought it, it was $65,000. That's all my family had to show for our life ahead of my record "Get Rich or Die Tryin'." I never imagined I would have much. I'd buy magazines and look at Lamborghinis and Ferraris. I was conditioned to like those cars before I could actually talk. But I never thought they would be in my driveway.

Q. What has been the biggest splurge?