He’s a Tony and five time Emmy winner, as well as an Academy Award nominee (for playing Ike Turner, Sr. in “What’s Love Got to Do With It”). Much of the time, whenever Laurence Fishburne appears in a movie, he elevates the material and the experience. This April Fishburne lends his talents to two major releases — the animated feature “Sneaks” (in theaters Apr. 18) and the thriller “The Amateur” (out Apr. 11), alongside Oscar winner Rami Malek.
One of my favorite Fishburne roles is one of his most iconic: Morpheus in “The Matrix” and its first two sequels. He reunited with Keanu Reeves to play ‘The Bowery King’ in the second, third and fourth “John Wick” installments. Fishburne was moving in “Akeelah and the Bee” and was part of the star studded ensemble of Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 “Contagion”. He played Perry White in two DC flicks, “Man of Steel” and “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” before switching over to Marvel as Dr. Bill Foster in “Ant-Man and the Wasp”.
A standout performance was opposite Steve Carell, a dynamite Bryan Cranston and the late Cicely Tyson in director Richard Linklater’s underrated “Last Flag Flying”. He carried the best scenes of 2021 indie football drama “Under the Stadium Lights”. And Fishburne’s voice work includes “TMNT”, the recent “Transformers One”, and as the Silver Surfer in Fox’s 2007 “Fantastic Four” follow up.
On the TV side, Fishburne broke through as Cowboy Curtis on “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” and was on more than 60 episodes of the “CSI” franchise. He was also on much of “Hannibal” and “Black-ish”, as well as the co-creator and a voice on Disney animated series “Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur”. Most recently he played Doc Rivers on FX on Hulu miniseries “Clipped”.
I’m looking forward to both “The Amateur” and “Sneaks” and whatever Fishburne’s working on next.