Oftentimes, actors had deep and intimate knowledge about the person or character they were playing years before they were offered the role. However, Laurence Fishburne had a different approach when tackling the role of former Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers on FX's new series Clipped.
Fishburne went in blind, as he had no clue who Rivers was before taking the role, via the Dan Patrick Show.
“When you get this offer to play Doc Rivers, what do you think of right away?” host and commentator Dan Patrick said.
“Who’s Doc Rivers?” Fishburne replied.
“Wait, you didn’t know who Doc Rivers was?” Patrick replied in shock.
“I had no idea who Doc Rivers was, I told you, I’m not a sports fan,” Fishburne reminded him.
The six-episode series, which released June 4th and is streaming on Hulu, centers around former Clippers owner Donald Sterling and his racism scandal in 2014. Rivers was the head coach at the time, and was tasked with trying to win a championship amidst the controversy.
That year, TMZ released clips of Sterling complaining to his mistress about her taking pictures with black people. The mistress, named Vanessa Perez, had posed with Magic Johnson at a Clippers game for Instagram. NBA commissioner Adam Silver permanently banned Sterling from the league days later.
This incident was especially sensitive for Rivers and many of the team's players as African-Americans, but everyone was appalled across the entire league.
Considering the seriousness of the topic, should the show's producers have hired a more well-versed basketball aficionado, or did they make the right call?
Fishburne is a legend, but it would've been interesting to see a hoops fan play the former Clippers coach
This is the type of situation that has valid points on both sides of the argument. While it helps for an actor to intimately know the subject, Fishburne explained that it's more objective to go in blind.
“Damn, is it easier when you don’t know who you’re playing or harder?” Patrick asked.
“Of course it is, it’s totally easier,” Fishburne replied. “I have no preconceived notion, I brought no preconceived idea about who the man was to it. I had no opinion about anything because I didn’t know about his history.”
“Then how do you start studying?” Patrick asked.
From there, Fishburne went into story time mode, explaining how he met Rivers and got a feel for his personality.
“Well luckily he’s still alive with us, he’s alive and well,” Fishburne said.” And we had mutual friends, so I was able to get his number and call him, talk to him briefly and I invited him to a Labor Day Party at my house. He and my friend Wynton Marsalis were there together and they immediately got into a debate about the late Bill Russell who had just passed away, about whether or not he was the greatest to ever play the game etc..”
This is about as Hollywood as it gets. The fact that Fishburne happened to have mutual friends with Rivers is already lucky enough, but the fact that the veteran actor got to observe Rivers in his element, candidly talking basketball, is as authentic of a way to study him as it gets.
“So I got to watch these two debate for two hours about the great Bill Russell,” Fishburne finished. “So you can imagine he was very passionate, he was very intelligent and it was very in depth because they were talking about specific games and moment’s in games etc.. right. So through that experience I was able to really observe Doc being his very, very natural self without any of the constraints of his position as a coach.”
While the show has an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, not everyone is pleased with it. Rivers' son and NBA retiree Austin Rivers expressed as much, via the Off Guard With Austin Rivers podcast.
“First off, Laurence Fishburne is a legend, big fan, he’s an absolute legend, and he’s a great actor, so the acting in this was great, but the body of my father is just a little bit different,” Rivers said. “I’m not saying he’s 100 percent in shape, but he’s built a little bit different than Laurence Fishburne. We could have done a little bit of AI or something there.”
The younger Rivers had a good point, as current technology allows for actors to look significantly different on-screen. The actor having a significantly different body than the subject risks making the piece less believable, thus making the audience less engaged.
Regardless, the show should be given more time to breathe before making an ultimate judgement. Sometimes, audiences can come around on something slowly over a longer period of time.
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