Laurence Fishburne has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in Film, Television and Theatre having worked in over 70 projects in all performance mediums. He is not only an actor, but also a playwright, screenwriter, director and producer.
In 1992, he was awarded a Tony for Best Featured Actor In A Play, a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critic’s, Circle Award, and a Theatre World Award for his work on Broadway as Sterling Johnson in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running. His television appearance in the 1993 premiere episode of Fox TV’s Tribeca landed Laurence an Emmy. And to complete a triple crown, he was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor of 1993 for his portrayal of Ike Turner in the film What’s Love Got to do With it.
He originated one of the most recognizable movie characters in history in the role of Morpheus in the 1999 Warner Brothers hit, The Matrix. He returned in the back-to-back sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions both released in 2003.
In January of 2003, Fishburne starred in Dreamwork’s Biker Boyz. In 2004, he was seen in the role of Boston detective Whitey in Clint Eastwood’s Oscar winning drama, Mystic River.
In 1992, he was awarded a Tony for Best Featured Actor In A Play, a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critic’s, Circle Award, and a Theatre World Award for his work on Broadway as Sterling Johnson in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running. His television appearance in the 1993 premiere episode of Fox TV’s Tribeca landed Laurence an Emmy. And to complete a triple crown, he was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor of 1993 for his portrayal of Ike Turner in the film What’s Love Got to do With it.
He originated one of the most recognizable movie characters in history in the role of Morpheus in the 1999 Warner Brothers hit, The Matrix. He returned in the back-to-back sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions both released in 2003.
In January of 2003, Fishburne starred in Dreamwork’s Biker Boyz. In 2004, he was seen in the role of Boston detective Whitey in Clint Eastwood’s Oscar winning drama, Mystic River.
In 1999 he appeared at the Roundabout Theater on Broadway, playing the role of Henry II in The Lion in Winter, a revival of the 1956 hit which focuses on the struggle between Henry II of France and his estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In addition, Laurence starred in and executive produced Always Outnumbered, directed by Michael Apted from a screenplay by author Walter Mosley, for HBO.
In 1997 Laurence received an Emmy nomination (Outstanding Lead Actor in a Mini-Series or Special) and an NAACP Image Award (1998) for his starring role in the HBO drama Miss Evers’ Boys, which he executive produced. It is based on the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play about the true story of the Tuskegee Study, a controversial medical experiment (1932-1972) in which the U.S. Health Service withheld medical service from a group of African-American men with syphilis. Miss Evers’ Boys was awarded five Emmys, including “outstanding made for Television movie” and the coveted “President’s Award,” which honors a program that illuminates a social or educational issue.
Fishburne starred in Paramount Pictures’ Event Horizon, the science-fiction thriller directed by Paul Anderson and costarring Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, and Joely Richardson, and Hoodlum, in which he starred and produced.
In 1996, he starred in the MGM action-comedy Fled and starred in the critically acclaimed film Othello in the title role, costarring with Kenneth Branagh and Irene Jacob for Castle Rock. He is the first African-American to play the Moor king in a major screen release and he follows a noble tradition of such actors in the role as Sir Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles.
In 1995, he starred in an original HBO film The Tuskegee Airmen, for which he received an NAACP Image Award for Best Actor in a Mini-Series and Golden Globe, Emmy and Cable Ace nominations for Best actor in a Mini-Series. The project tells the story of American’s first African-American combat pilots.
Laurence’s other film appearances include the steamy Bad Company for Touchstone, costarring with Ellen Barkin; Higher Learning, for which he received an NAACP Image Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture as Professor Phipps, with writer/director John Singleton; and Just Cause for Warner Brothers costarring with Sean Connery.
In Searching For Bobby Fischer, Laurence played a New York street-wise speed chess player who aids in the progress of a young chess protege. Just prior to this he played a very different role as that of an undercover cop, co-starring with Jeff Goldblum in Deep Cover.
Directors have no trouble creating roles specifically for Laurence. John Singleton fashioned the role of Furious Styles in Boyz in the Hood after his own father, but shaped it with Laurence in mind. Another filmmaker that Laurence worked with on several occasions was Martin Sheen. Sheen created a role for Laurence, that of street wise military prisoner named Stokes, in Cadence, which Sheen directed after the two had gotten to know each other well during the 18 months it took to make Apocalypse Now when Laurence as 14 years old.
Laurence has been acting in films and on stage since he was 10, starting on the soap opera One Life To Live, then making his feature film debut in Cornbread, Earl and Me at 12. At 14, he was cast in a show for the Negro Ensemble Company and accepted into the High School of Performing Arts in New York City.
At 14, he headed off to the Philippines for work with some of the greatest actors of our time under the most extreme circumstances for the epic motion picture Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
Following Apocalypse Now, Laurence returned to his New York home base, Brooklyn, and continued to rack up impressive credits appearing in Class Action, King of New York, Red, Heat, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Cotton Club and Rumblefish.
His television credits includes Decoration Day for Hallmark Hall of Fame, For Us the Living for PBS, A Rumor of War for CBS and numerous other starring or guest starring roles.
