E-mail a friendLaurence Fishburne
original airdate March 20, 2008
Laurence Fishburne has an impressive list of stage, TV and film credits and the honors to match—Emmys, a Tony and an Oscar nod. He made his acting debut at age 10 on the New York stage and gave a breakthrough performance in the film, Boyz N the Hood, going on to become the first African American to play Othello on screen. Fishburne returns to Broadway for the first time in nine years, starring as Justice Thurgood Marshall in the one-man show, Thurgood. He can also be seen in the feature drama, 21.
Actor discusses his upcoming one-man show and how he deals with the fear of doing something new. (3:10)
Full Interview. (11:55)
Laurence Fishburne
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Laurence Fishburne back to this program. Opening April 30th you can catch him on Broadway in the much anticipated one-man show about the life of the late, great Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall. "Thurgood" runs through July 20th this summer. Before that, though, you don't have to travel to New York, although I will to see him, he's starring in the upcoming film "21." The movie opens nationwide March 28th and also stars Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth. Here now, a scene from "21."
[Clip]
Tavis: Fish, good to see you, man.
Laurence Fishburne: And you.
Tavis: I was saying to you during the clip that is it just me or are you playing bosses and heavies in your career again?
Fishburne: Yeah, I've come full circle; I'm doing bosses and doing heavies.
Tavis: I saw"Mission Impossible," like, last night.
Fishburne: yeah, "Mission Impossible" was the boss who's kind of the red herring, this thing, I'm the heavy. I just finished a thing called "Armored" with a young man named Columbus Short, Jean Reno, Matt Dillon, Milo Ventimiglia. I'm playing, like, a loose cannon heavy.
Tavis: So how does that happen? Is that, like, by design, it just happens that way?
Fishburne: No, it's just kind of happened that way. I'm happy about it, really, because it's kept me from having to repeat myself like sort of back-to-back. I did a lot of heavies and a lot of thugs when I was a kid, and now to be doing sort of older thugs is fine, I guess. (Laughter)
Tavis: So what's the secret? What's the secret or what it is about your style that allows you to play an effective heavy, an effective boss? Because you pull it off.
Fishburne: I don't know, I don't know. I wish I could tell you.
Tavis: The voice, the command?
Fishburne: Man, it's probably a combination of the voice, my size, and then my history. When you've been in a lot of movies, you kind of come with a history that the audience has a memory of you as one thing or another. So I think with the boss thing, people remember me as kind of an authority figure from "Boyz N The Hood," and it's kind of like a little bit crazy from "What's Love Got to Do With It?" or whatever it is.
Tavis: I want to come back to "21" in just a second, but since you mentioned "Boyz N The Hood," you took me back right quick. I saw - again, you're on cable every night somewhere, so I'm watching "Akeelah and the Bee" a couple nights ago. Were you disappointed in how that - that was such a great film, and it just -
Fishburne: Yeah, it was disappointing that it didn't get seen by more people, but I'm really pleased that we got it made. It was a struggle to get it made, so the fact that we got it made, that it's out there, it exists, people can see it, it's playing on cable now, that's a small victory, yeah.
Tavis: So back to "21," the story line is - tell me a little about the character.
Fishburne: It's a young guy who's a mathlete, right? Really, really good with numbers. And he gets recruited by a college professor to join this 21 blackjack team, and their thing is they go to Vegas every weekend, count cards, which is illegal, (laughter) and they make a killing. I play the security man at the casino whose job it is to catch people like this.
And so there you have the conflict. So I'm running around chasing these kids in the casino, trying to stop them from ripping us off.
Tavis: There is something about - maybe you know better than I - there's something about Vegas and this whole casino lifestyle and trying to beat Vegas. It's the stuff of never-ending screenplays.
Fishburne: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Vegas is just a great location and a great sort of - there's a million stories that come out of Vegas and they're all kind of exciting because the element of - because of this gambling element. Like, gambling is an unscripted kind of drama. You don't know how it's going to turn out. The turn of a wheel, the flip of a card, the roll of the dice.
Tavis: Hey, Vegas knows how it's going to turn out.
Fishburne: Yeah, well, I guess. They say that, but on the surface it looks like - it's all set up to look like you could be a winner. It's all set up to make you feel like you could be a winner. And as long as you feel like you could be a winner, I suppose it's worth it to a lot of people.
Tavis: So "21" is like the - my mother's probably watching, I shouldn't say this - gambling is a sin.
Fishburne: I see, I see.
Tavis: But "21" is like the only thing that I'm, like, reasonably adept at playing.
Fishburne: You're allowed to play.
Tavis: Well, not even allowed to play.
Fishburne: You're not even allowed to play.
Tavis: Not allowed to play at all. But just - I couldn't play Monopoly when I was a kid, (laughter) that's how strict the church was that I grew up in.
Fishburne: I see.
Tavis: I could play checkers. Not even chess, just checkers.
Fishburne: Oh, wow, just checkers.
Tavis: That's a whole another story, though, we won't talk - anyway, I raise 21 because it's the only thing that I can play -
Fishburne: You can kind of play?
Tavis: - reasonably well. What about you, though, are you a card person?
Fishburne: I don't play anything. I know how to play 21 and I went and I sat down when we were making the movie and I played, like, a hand or something. I made, like - spent like $40 or something, but I don't gamble at all. I don't even like sports.
Tavis: So you did a whole movie and you didn't learn how to beat Vegas?
Fishburne: No, no.
Tavis: You're supposed to take something away, Laurence.
Fishburne: No, man, no. (Laughter) That wasn't my gig.
Tavis: What is it - since you went there, what is it about sports that Fish doesn't?
Fishburne: I think it was because I started acting early, when I was 10 years old, and I used to, like, travel a lot. Because you go and make a movie and they send you first class and you're in the first class cabin and you're tall, and people would always come up to me and go, "Aren't you an athlete?" And I always resented it, that people assumed that because I was Black and tall that I was an athlete.
And I would say, "No, I'm an actor." And they'd go, "Have I seen you in anything?" (Laughter) And I'd say, "I did this movie called 'Apocalypse Now,'" which hadn't come out yet, and people would kind of look like me like that's an awfully big word for a young man like you to be throwing around. And you're not an athlete?
So I just kind of went the other way. I really have a lot of respect for athletes, though. After training for the first "Matrix," I recognized that what they do requires a great amount of discipline and focus, so I respect them. I actually went to the Super Bowl for the first time this year.
Tavis: Did you enjoy it?
Fishburne: I did, and I've never been to a football game before.
Tavis: Well, you went to the right one.
Fishburne: I went to a great game.
Tavis: That was quite a game.
Fishburne: Those guys, those New York Giants defense guys, they were not there to play a game, they were there to fight. They came to fight.
Tavis: That was quite a game.
Fishburne: Yeah, it was amazing.
Tavis: I'm connecting with you and I suspect most other brothers are. I suspect that most of us have probably had that experience, where somebody says something to you and unwittingly offends you because you get tired of being -
Fishburne: Well, it's not so much that it's offensive; it's just that the assumption is a little off-putting. It's like, why assume that?
Tavis: You started acting, as you said, when you were 10, and unlike a lot of folk you have navigated yourself to a state where you seem to be reasonably well adjusted.
Fishburne: Yes, yes, I seem to be.
Tavis: You seem to be, at least. (Laughter) Seem to be well adjusted. Yeah, I don't know what happens at home, but you're well adjusted. Speaking of home, first of all, how's the baby?
Fishburne: The baby is beautiful.
Tavis: The baby is beautiful, okay.
Fishburne: Thank you.
Tavis: So I raise this, you starting at 10, because I wonder whether or not along the way you ever thought about getting out of the acting thing?
Fishburne: No. I've had maybe one or two moments where I thought, okay.
Tavis: Enough of this.
Fishburne: I'm not - there's got to be something better than this. But no. And those were important moments for me, for I think anyone who decides to involve themselves in a creative life, the moment where you get to the place where you go I can't do this anymore, maybe I should do something else. That's a really important moment. I've had that two times in my life.
Tavis: Was it the same, was the "Matrix" the same, pardon the pun? Was it the same thing that led you to even raise that question? Same situation, same circumstance?
Fishburne: No, it's just I had been doing it and doing it and I wanted to be someplace where I was not. I wanted to be at a place that I wasn't at, and I thought, "Oh, I'm going to stop, I don't want to do this." But I stuck it out.
Tavis: You're comfortable with where your career is now?
Fishburne: I'm really happy. What I'm about to do in New York is huge for me in the life and a career where I've done a great number of things. I've never done a one-man show, and I've only played a lawyer once. So this is really very exciting and very scary. I'm really afraid, I'm scared right now. I will get my confidence together when I get into rehearsal and stuff, but I'm excited because I will get to interact with a different audience every night and do something I've only really done a little bit of, which is break the fourth wall.
I will be able to communicate directly to the audience and allow them to - or to share with them a much more I guess softer side of myself. Because I've kind of played kind of heavies and hard guys and guys who are at a distance, but this guy I'm playing was a great storyteller and was really good at making people feel at ease. So I get to utilize the lighter aspects of my personality, which I don't often use in most of my work.
Tavis: And yet I suspect, Laurence, there are some up-and-coming or want-to-be thespians watching right now who just heard Laurence Fishburne admit on national television that he's scared, he's a little frightened taking on this project. Explain that. That's a good thing for you?
Fishburne: It's a good thing. I was talking to one of my dear friends and he said, "That's great." For an actor to be where I am in my career at this point, for me to be afraid and to be able to say that I'm afraid, to speak that, means that I still care about what I do. I really care about whether or not I'm going to do this well.
I'm not interested in just going and doing it because it's going to be easy for me. This is going to be a big challenge for me. I haven't done this before. I have to talk and speak and perform for an hour and a half straight, on my own, with an audience, and I have to engage them, I have to make them laugh, I have to be poignant, I have to educate them.
I have to give them a complete experience with the text and in concert with working with the director and his vision of the whole thing, and try to evoke the spirit of Thurgood Marshall, who was a giant.
Tavis: I was about to ask, what's the biggest challenge of trying to do that, trying to play this guy on stage?
Fishburne: He was - this man changed the way we live in this country. He changed - the work that he did changed the way that we live in this country. Separate but equal was the law of the land, particularly in the segregated South. It is no longer, largely because of the work that he did.
Tavis: I get the sense, though, that you thrive - although scared and frightened, you thrive on playing larger than life figures.
Fishburne: I don't know. I just like to play, man. I thrive on playing. I don't care if they're larger than life; I don't care if they're as low as the gutter. I just like playing.
Tavis: And we like to watch him play.
Fishburne: Thanks, man.
Tavis: We like to watch him play.
Fishburne: Thank you.
Tavis: Laurence Fishburne in the movie "21," March 28th, and of course you can join me and a bunch of other people as we head to New York (laughter) to we catch him on Broadway in "Thurgood." Good to see you, man.
Fishburne: You, too.
Back to March 20, 2008