The following year, in 1992, he won a Tony Award for his stage performance in the August Wilson play Two Trains Running and an Emmy Award for his performance in the opening episode, "The Box," of the short-lived anthology series television drama TriBeCa. In 1990, Fishburne played Jimmy Jump in the controversial King of New York, and in 1991, starred in Boyz n the Hood. Fishburne's character was a depiction of an African American, culturally inclined college student at a historically black college.
Fishburne also starred as "Dap" in Spike Lee's School Daze (1988). Fishburne featured in Red Heat (1988) beside Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi. Also in 1987 he played a part in the third A Nightmare on Elm Street film as a hospital orderly. His stage work during the 1980s included Short Eyes (1984), and Loose Ends (1987), both produced at Second Stage Theatre in New York City. He also appeared alongside Kevin Bacon in Quicksilver. In Spenser: For Hire, he was a guest star for the second-season episode "Personal Demons". He also appeared in the M*A*S*H episode, "The Tooth Shall Set You Free". Fishburne had a recurring role as Cowboy Curtis on Paul Reubens' CBS children's television series Pee-wee's Playhouse. He appeared in the early 1980s movies Band of the Hand, Death Wish 2 and The Cotton Club, and had a minor role in the critically acclaimed Steven Spielberg film The Color Purple. In the early 1980s, he worked as a bouncer at punk rock clubs. įishburne spent much of the 1980s in and out of television and periodically on stage.
Filming took so long that he actually was 17 years old upon its completion. When production began in March 1976, he was just 14 years old, having lied about his age to get the part. He later earned a supporting role in Apocalypse Now, in which he played Tyrone Miller, a cocky 17-year-old Gunner's Mate 3rd Class from the Bronx, nicknamed Mr. His most memorable childhood role was in Cornbread, Earl and Me, in which he played a young boy who witnessed the police shooting of a popular high school basketball star. In 1973, Fishburne had his first acting role portraying Joshua Hall on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live. Career 1973–1989įor most of his early career, he was credited as Larry Fishburne. Fishburne is a graduate of Lincoln Square Academy in New York, which closed in the 1980s. After his parents divorced during his childhood, he moved with his mother to Brooklyn, New York, where he was raised. Raymond Langston on the CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008–2011), as Special Agent Jack Crawford in the NBC thriller series Hannibal (2013–2015) and as Earl "Pops" Johnson in the ABC sitcom Black-ish (2014–present).įishburne was born in Augusta, Georgia, the son of Hattie Bell (née Crawford), a junior high school mathematics and science teacher, and Laurence John Fishburne, Jr., a juvenile corrections officer. Other film credits of Fishburne include The Color Purple (1985), School Daze (1988), King of New York (1990), Deep Cover (1992), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), Event Horizon (1997), Mystic River (2003), Akeelah and the Bee (2006), Contagion (2011), Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). Fishburne became the first African American to portray Othello in a motion picture by a major studio when he appeared in Oliver Parker's 1995 film adaptation of the Shakespeare play. He won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in Two Trains Running (1992), and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in TriBeCa (1993). Clean" Miller in the war film Apocalypse Now (1979), and "The Bowery King" in the John Wick film series (2017–present).įor his portrayal of Ike Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It (1993), Fishburne was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He is known for playing Morpheus in The Matrix trilogy (1999, 2003), Jason "Furious" Styles in the drama film Boyz n the Hood (1991), Tyrone "Mr. He has been critically hailed for his forceful, militant, and authoritative characters in his films. Laurence John Fishburne III (born July 30, 1961) is an American actor, playwright, producer, screenwriter, and film director.