20 Questions: Laurence Fishburne

The director of "Boyz N the Hood," John Singleton, says Laurence Fishburne reminds him of Omar Sharif. Producer David Burke, who gave the actor his recent Emmy-winning role in the series "Tribeca," sees Fishburne as Spencer Tracy. The 32-year-old actor's range is impressive. After three years on the soap opera "One Life to Live," he landed his second film role--at 14--in Francis Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" and spent his wonder years in the Philippine jungle. He came home burned out and turned on--good practice for his most recent successes: making a human being out of Ike Turner in last year's Tina Turner biopic, "What's Love Got to Do With It," and playing a homeless chess master in "Searching for Bobby Fischer." He is slated to star in the Jimi Hendrix biopic next. There have been many other roles, including Cowboy Curtis on "Pee-wee's Playhouse," the fabulously criminal Jimmy Jump in the cult classic "King of New York" and Sterling in August Wilson's play "Two Trains Running," for which he won a Tony. We sent Contributing Editor David Rensin to Vancouver, B.C., where Fishburne was filming the post--Cold War spy thriller "The Tool Shed" with Ellen Barkin. Said Rensin, "Fishburne, once Larry, is now Laurence. He says he gets more respect. But he still lets close friends call him Fish."

1.

[Q] Playboy: As a teenager, you spent almost two years making Apocalypse Now in the jungle with Dennis Hopper, Francis Coppola, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando. What did their combined influence produce?

[A] Fishburne: I took a bit from each of them. Martin nurtured my spirit. He complimented me often and did everything he could to let me know that not only was I a gifted actor but also a human being worthy of being loved and treated with respect.

Francis challenged my mind. He always did and said things that I would be forced to think about before I could speak to him--which was unusual because as an adolescent, I didn't usually engage the mind before the mouth opened. It took me a long time to learn that. He always wanted to see what was going on inside my head.

I didn't spend a lot of time with Mr. Duvall. He spent the least time there but always impressed me as the consummate professional.

Dennis was unlike any person I had ever encountered. He was not in the best period of his life. He was reckless; he was wild. I'd never seen a human being behave the way Dennis behaved and get away with it. And I wanted to know how he did it. I followed him around for about five months. His energy, power, sheer audacity and pure guts were things I wanted. I wanted to be Dennis, and after I got back to the States I was for a little while--though I never got as far out as he did.

Brando and I had a couple of brief encounters. The first was at a party. The day before, he had walked onto the set and introduced himself to everyone. The next day he threw a party. There was a Filipino band doing Top 40 tunes, and a magician. Marlon waved me over to him. The magician did a trick--I think he produced a dove, or a rabbit, out of his hat. I was amazed, as a 14-year-old would be. I went, "How did he do that?" And Brando just whispered to me: "It's bullshit."

2.

[Q] Playboy: Many lines from Apocalypse Now have become classics. Which never leave your head?

[A] Fishburne: A few of them. "What do you know about surfing, Major? You're from goddamned New Jersey." And "What are they going to say? He was a kind man? He had wisdom? Wrong." And "The bullshit piled up so high in Vietnam, you needed bat wings to stay above it."

3.

[Q] Playboy: We understand that you're not exactly a stranger to drugs. Would you take LSD again today?

[A] Fishburne: No. [Smiles] But I might do mushrooms, strictly for medicinal purposes. I would use them under proper guidance, of course.

I'm not afraid to open myself up. I've had to all my life. Part of my job is to dig and to dig deeper. And I really enjoy it, because change is constant and is not something you should fight. Accelerated change can be good for you. The more you change, the more you grow. The more you grow, the better for you and those around you.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Women don't seem to get King of New York. Can you help out the guys and explain its appeal?

[A] Fishburne: They don't get Reservoir Dogs, either. They won't get Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Everything ain't for everybody, so I can't presume to explain that movie to a woman. That's like trying to explain to your woman why you're fucking another woman. You can't explain that and expect them to get it and to go, "Oh, all right. Oh, I see!" They're not going to say, "I agree with you, honey. It's OK." They're not going to do that shit! They're going to be pissed off--and they're not going to get it. Men and women are different. And there's nothing wrong with that. If they were the same, it would be a drag.

I wouldn't have to explain it to a man. You just say, "Yo, man--my man pulled his shit out, and he just iced homeboy." I don't know; all I can tell you is it's a male thing. "You can go downtown and be with them homos if you want to--I'm going to a real party." [Laughs] Rites of passage for men include violence.

5.

[Q] Playboy: What's your favorite Chris Walken story that will explain him to the rest of us?

[A] Fishburne: Walken and I went to see some dailies--the scene where I go to his hotel and we meet each other, and there's that sort of standoff. When it was over, Chris came up to me and said, "You know, you really worked hard for your money." And he kissed me and walked out.

6.

[Q] Playboy: You've upgraded your name. What does Laurence get that Larry never did?

[A] Fishburne: Actually, I haven't upgraded it, I just went back to my given name. Laurence gets courtesy. Now, people think about asking me things before they ask them. It used to be, "Larry, we're gonna.... OK?" Now it's, "Excuse me, Laurence, we want to.... Is that all right?" There's a quality of distance. It's not as familiar. And I enjoy that. People see me in the movies and assume they know me intimately. Of course, they don't. Laurence gives me some breathing room.

7.

[Q] Playboy: You played Cowboy Curtis on Pee-wee's Playhouse. We remember you sitting around a campfire with Pee-wee, talking about wieners. Clearly, there was a lot of adult fun built into the show. Can you give us a short course on the subtext?

[A] Fishburne: Big feet, big boots. You know what they say. [Laughs] It was designed that way. At first, Pee-wee's show was adult fun. There's an hour-long episode that sometimes runs on HBO in which he wants to learn to fly. His friend Hammy comes in and they're goofing around in the playhouse. Then Hammy's sister comes in. And they say, "I know! I know! Shoe mirrors!" And they go to this trunk and grab shoe mirrors and put them on their feet. Then they stand on either side of her, looking at their mirrors, trying to look up her dress. And she says, "I'm not wearing any underwear!" And they're like, "Awwww!" It was always that way. He just kind of modified it so that kids would get it, too.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Before doing The Tool Shed with Ellen Barkin, which of her movies did you watch to get ready for her?

[A] Fishburne: This Boy's Life. And not even to check her out. Ellen is a magnificent actor. Powerful and true. I haven't seen her do anything false. And she always looks great. I loved her in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. And Sea of Love. I still want to see Siesta, but the one copy in my video store is always rented. Another film I can never find is The Cool World, with Clarence Williams III. I don't even think this movie's on video, though. It's an old movie, made in the Sixties sometime. It's not to be confused with the Kim Basinger and Gabriel Byrne film that came out a couple of years ago. This is about a street gang in Harlem.

9.

[Q] Playboy: If What's Love Got to Do With It had been about Ike, would you have played him differently?

[A] Fishburne: I went out of my way to make him a real character anyway, but I would have played him more thoroughly. I would have liked the opportunity to show that Ike was violent with everybody, not just women. And when I say violent with everybody, I don't mean that Ike went around kicking people's asses at will, but that Ike could be violent with men if he didn't feel things were going his way. I also would have liked to be more specific about his decline. I could have shown what happens to somebody who's ambitious and driven and strong-willed, under the effects of drugs that deteriorate the mind, the body and the spirit. There is probably another movie to be made here.

10.

[Q] Playboy: Ike's been given no quarter as the stone-cold villain. You seem sympathetic. Are you?

[A] Fishburne: I love Ike. Just man to man, I love Ike. No Ike, no Tina. From 1956 to 1958, Ike had long money--he had a big band, he had talent, he had vision. He was one of the first men to put a woman out in front of his band, playing that type of music. Ike was the bad guy in the movie. And a lot of times he was the bad guy in their relationship. But that don't mean all of it was on him. A relationship is 50-50. I doubt that Tina hates him. I think Tina still loves Ike and he loves her. But I think their love for each other is exactly what they have always maintained it is: They are brother and sister. Only a brother and sister could fight like they fought. That scene in the limo is probably the most accurate thing in the film. It's like two little kids.

11.

[Q] Playboy: You once said you were the black Jodie Foster. Did she respond?

[A] Fishburne: She read that and wrote me a note saying she looked forward to the day we could hook up, and in the meantime, could she be the white Laurence Fishburne. That really surprised me.

12.

[Q] Playboy: White people get in trouble when they criticize Spike Lee. You know him from School Daze. If he were disposed to really listen to you, what would your best advice be?

[A] Fishburne: Black people get in trouble, too. I once criticized Spike on a radio show, and five hours later I heard about it from the press: "You said what?" I had to apologize publicly. The bottom line is that Spike is who he is, and he does what he does. And to be fair, I need to give him my criticisms directly.

13.

[Q] Playboy: You are one of the few actors to turn down working with him a second time, passing on the role of Radio Raheem in Do the Right Thing. Why?

[A] Fishburne: I had already had the experience of working with one director--Francis Coppola--in a number of films. I'd done that. That's what Spike was doing. If you look at his movies, you see the same faces in most of them. I wanted to do it with Spike. I wanted to be his actor. I'd figured, he's from Brooklyn, I'm from Brooklyn. He's black, I'm black. He makes movies about Brooklyn. I naturally have within me stuff that would be relevant to the stories he was telling about that place. But our points of view are completely different. And Spike's a little older than me and eventually we didn't see eye to eye. His brother David and I are the same age and seem to click better. Spike's trip is different. It wouldn't have worked out for us.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Your dad left home when you were about three years old, but you maintained contact. Did he use his job as a corrections officer at a juvenile facility to keep you in line?

[A] Fishburne: He didn't have to do anything. He just told me what he did. But once, after I'd made Cornbread, Earl and Me--I was 12--he came to me and he said, "You know, I took my boys down to see your movie, and they liked it. They liked it a lot. They have a message for you." I said, "Oh, yeah, Dad? What's that?" He said, "Well, they wanted to tell you that you really got something good going. You have something worthwhile happening for you. And that if you ever fuck up and wind up in the joint, they will kick your motherfucking ass." I said, "No problem."

15.

[Q] Playboy: The Tool Shed is about, among other things, redefining espionage and that community's role in the post--Cold War world. What should we do with all the spies?

[A] Fishburne: Good question. You can't make musicians out of them. You can't make them into garbagemen. Give them government jobs. Maybe make them law enforcement people.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Is there anyone you'd like to spy on?

[A] Fishburne: I'd like to spy on women doing whatever it is they do when they're by themselves. They're foreign to me, as a man, and therefore interesting. Their stories and their feelings and emotions have not been told in a way that is accurate, according to them. So I would like to spy on them and to know. It's like what we were talking about before--how can you explain King of New York or Reservoir Dogs to a woman? You can't. How can a woman explain some female stuff to me? For instance, a woman comes over to your house and leaves things. Women leave earrings--or pairs of panties or shoes--to mark their territory. How do you explain that shit?

17.

[Q] Playboy: Is it to mark their territory, or to give them an excuse to come back?

[A] Fishburne: I don't know what it is. Either way, I don't get it. Why would a woman come to your place and leave a bra hanging on the door? Another woman will come by, see it, walk by it four or five times--will not touch it! Do you understand that? I sure as fuck don't. Why doesn't she pick it up and ask, "Whose is this?" I know damn well if I went to a woman's house and saw another man's tie hanging on the door, I'd go, "Whose is this?" I'd want to know--even if I had no proprietary right to this woman. It's not about that. It's, Do I have to worry about this motherfucker coming through the window while we're in here getting busy?

Men probably can't understand this stuff without actually being women, but it would be nice to get the inside dope on them.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have an opinion on the white suburban appropriation of black urban style?

[A] Fishburne: It's been going on since black people got to this country. Musical style. Style of dress. Attitude, dance, slang. All these trends that white youth have identified with as rebellious come out of black America. And why? Blacks have been in the position of having to rebel since day one. It's only natural. Black people are the lowest on the totem pole. When kids reach adolescence that's often how they feel. They feel like they are adults, but they're not treated that way. Blacks are this country's perpetual adolescents.

But it's not just that the dominant culture has enforced adolescence on the black culture. America is an adolescent. America is a fucking teenager, man. We're still obsessed with volume, we're still obsessed with speed. We still giggle and get embarrassed when breasts show up on TV. It's the whole country. One day we're all going to wake up and realize that this is not about black America and white America and red America and yellow America and brown America. Why? Look at television. The most popular thing isn't 60 Minutes. It's MTV. That's what the little ones are looking at. And they see everybody. Chinese, Jewish, black, white--the kids see themselves. It's great. Reality is not what we've been told it is--everything separate. Never has been.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Were you more of a fun date during King of New York or What's Love Got to Do With It?

[A] Fishburne: What's Love Got to Do With It. When I did King of New York, I had lots of anger in my personal life, in particular about where my career was going. By the time I made What's Love Got to Do With It, I had put all that aside. A lot of it had to do with getting the King of New York job. The role was captivating. It was powerful. It was fun. It is extremely watchable. It's the kind of stuff I used to love seeing at the movies. It's a classic badman. It's a classic two-gun kid, American gangster style. I had it in me to do that kind of character and that kind of work a long time ago, but King was the first opportunity to do it.

20.

[Q] Playboy: While working 12 hours a day on your Emmy-winning role in Tribeca, you were doing eight shows a week of the August Wilson play Two Trains Running. When did you rest?

[A] Fishburne: The first three days were like Zen. I got up at 5:30 in the morning. I went to work on Tribeca and acted all day. And then, at 6:30 in the evening, they put me in a van and took me uptown so I'd get to the theater at 7:15. I was onstage from 8:00 to 11:00. I existed on acting. I didn't have a lot to eat or drink. My whole body was tingling. I felt strong because I was doing what I love to do all day long.

acting's versatile prodigy gives the skinny on spike and ike and tells what love's got to do with it