Don Cheadle wrote, directed and stars in Miles Ahead, a non-traditional biopic about jazz legend Miles Davis. The actor says the whole project was a real labor of love, which is why he actually went so far as to learn how to play the trumpet, just as Davis did.

"It was important to me to learn how to play because at some point in my development, Miles was as bad as I am now," he laughs. "Maybe he was 8 or 9 years old."

Cheadle tells ABC Radio, "I just wanted to be as close to him as possible and not just to do some kind of a Vegas mimicry but try to understand him as much as I could."

As for how Cheadle got involved in the project, the House of Lies star was hand-picked by Davis' family to play the musician -- without Cheadle's knowledge.

"It was a declaration that [Miles' nephew] Vincent made when Miles was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, that they were gonna do a movie about his life and I was gonna be the guy who played him," Cheadle tells ABC Radio. "You know, he hadn’t called me to ask first, and I had never actually met him before and didn’t know he existed on the planet! But that was something that he determined, and then we set about trying to figure out what it would look like."

Cheadle adds that the whole project was challenging because he was directing himself, as well as the entire cast.

"Directing me wasn’t as tricky, I think, as directing the other actors," he explains. "You’re not usually in scenes with actors who, once someone says 'cut,' look to you and go, 'OK...I think maybe you need to push that moment a little more.' And you’re like, “Who’re you talking to? You’re just an actor. Don’t talk to me like that!'” (AUDIO IS ABC 1-ON-1)

Miles Ahead opens in limited release Friday.

Source-ABC