He was able to play in Apocalypse Now thanks to a lie and an employee
Laurence Fishburne is a well-known actor, famous for his roles in movies like Experts, Matrix, and John Wick. However, his career could have taken a different path. Born in Augusta, Georgia, he grew up in Brooklyn and studied at the High School of Performing Arts in New York. He managed to get into the prestigious Actors Studio.
But it was a lie that allowed him to make a name for himself. In order to be cast in the cult film Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Laurence Fishburne, who was just 14 years old at the time, claimed to be 16. This lie marked the beginning of his long and successful career. In an interview on CBS, he shared this story, suggesting that the production team pretended to believe him.
A rich career marked by a cult trilogy
In addition to starting his career with a cult film, Laurence Fishburne owes his beginnings to someone who believed in him, mistaking him for a young man rather than a teenager. From there, his career took off rapidly. He was even nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars for his role as Ike Turner in the movie Tina. Then, in 1995, he became the first black actor to play Othello. However, the pinnacle of his career came with the role of Morpheus in the iconic movie Matrix. In this 1999 film, he played the role of a hacker captain who believes that Neo holds the key to freeing humanity from machines.
In the 2000s, Laurence Fishburne appeared in movies like Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, Mission Impossible 3, and Vegas 21. Simultaneously, he became known for his role as Dr. Raymond Langston in the TV series The Experts. In the 2010s, he starred in movies such as Man of Steel, The Signal, Batman v Superman, passenger, John Wick 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Running with the Devil. However, his appearances in the 2020s have been quieter. He appeared in movies like The School of Good and Evil, The Knife by the Blade, and John Wick 4. Next year, he will lend his voice to Alpha Trion in Transformers One by Josh Colley. However, he was replaced by Yahya Abdul Mateen II in Matrix Resurrections, released in 2021, due to script reasons.