Notably famous for his role as Morpheus in the “Matrix” saga, Laurence Fishburne took his first steps in the cinema in front of the camera of Francis Ford Coppola. Then 14 years old, he had to lie to integrate the film.
Known throughout the world thanks to his unforgettable interpretation of the charismatic Morpheus in the Matrix saga, Laurence Fishburne has been evolving in the cinema environment for nearly 40 years now. An international star, we have also seen him in the John Wick saga, in Othello, in Mystic River by Clint Eastwood or in the series The Experts.
But at the end of the 70s, when he was still a young teenager and no one yet knew his face, it was with an even more legendary film that he took his first steps on the big screen. In Francis Ford Coppola’s legendary Apocalypse Now, it was indeed Laurence Fishburne who played the young Mr. Clean, who was part of the expedition led by Willard (Martin Sheen) to find and eliminate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando, who also improvised a good part of his lines).
“I told them I was 16 when I had my interview. I was 14”said the actor much later, at the microphone of the CBC. “I think they knew that, I don’t think I fooled anyone.”
Fishburne then explained that Coppola asked a young woman passing by if she thought the young man looked 18, to which she replied “yes”. A simple word which therefore allowed the actor to integrate his first big film … but also to save the life of a certain Emilio Estevez!
Indeed, as he recently told the latter, notably known for his roles in Breakfast Club or Les Petits Champions, Laurence Fishburne had saved him from drowning while he was passing through the filming of Apocalypse Now to visit her father, Martin Sheen.
United Artists / Warner Bros. Laurence Fishburne in 1979, then in 1999
“We just rubbed shoulders with each other for a few days, it was in the Philippines”told Emilio Estevez on the set of Jennifer Hudson Show.
“He offered to go for a ride on a small boat, and I accepted. We went together on this small boat, and we started getting too close to the shore, so I offered to go out to push [le bateau] away from the shore.”
“I jumped out of the boat, into some kind of muddy quicksand, and started to sink. I saw Fishburne looking at me, he just said, ‘Grab my hand!’ And he got me out of there. We’ve been together ever since.”
(Re)discover the hidden details in “Apocalypse Now”…