Laurence Fishburne isn’t looking to top himself when it comes to signing up for sci-fi projects like his new movie Slingshot.
The Oscar-nominated actor continues to be among the most in-demand performers in Hollywood and has starred in a wide range of features running the gamut in genre and scope. Hitting theaters this weekend from Bleecker Street is Slingshot, featuring Fishburne as Captain Franks, who leads a multi-year mission to Saturn’s moon Titan to obtain needed natural resources. Meanwhile, the voyage gets tense as fellow astronaut John (Casey Affleck) begins to lose his sense of reality. (The plot involves a major twist that won’t be spoiled here.)
Chief among the previous sci-fi projects in which Fishburne has made his mark is, of course, the Matrix trilogy, in addition to assorted other titles like Event Horizon (1997), Predators (2010) and Passengers (2016). Fishburne’s upcoming releases include other features that fall into that genre, including Megalopolis, The Astronaut and the animated film Transformers One. However, the actor makes it clear that, rather than following any agenda, he simply takes projects that he can’t get out of his mind.
“I’m not thinking about the other things that I’ve done in the genre,” Fishburne says about what impacts his role selection. “With Slingshot, I was just really intrigued by the story and very surprised at the twist and the way that everything resolves itself — or doesn’t resolve itself, depending upon your point of view. It was written in such a way that I couldn’t figure out where it was going, and that is very exciting for me.”
Fishburne praises Slingshot director Mikael Håfström and the rest of the film’s team for shooting and designing the movie in such a way that the crew’s ship, where much of the action takes place, feels both expansive and claustrophobic, which adds to the continuous tension.
Laurence Fishburne and Casey Affleck in Slingshot.
Courtesy of Everett Collection
“The ship is deceptively small and large,” Fishburne quips. “It’s basically a circle, so there are times when it seems to be really huge, and then there are these other places in it where it’s really tight and cramped, and you can’t turn around without stepping on somebody. Some of that is the design, some of that is the lenses that they used, and there were elements that came in and out, so it was really crafted well. It was really well-thought-out, and so we had the support to just play what was written.”
The film marks his first project with Affleck, but Fishburne has admired his co-star’s performances for years. “Big fan of Casey’s work and always wanted to work with him,” Fishburne says. The jazz aficionado goes on to compare Affleck to a certain late trumpeter: “I kind of describe [Affleck] as the Chet Baker of acting. He’s really cool. He’s got this great sense of lyricism, sense of humor. He’s got a great sense of romance. He’s got this beautiful melancholy, this genuine intelligence and a great vulnerability and sensitivity that I just really, really admire.”
Fishburne, who is also known of late for the John Wick trilogy, is no stranger to the superhero genre, as he played Bill Foster in Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp and Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White in Zack Snyder’s DC films Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Fishburne’s version of the editor has proven to be indelible, as multiple onscreen portrayals of the character since then portray Perry as a Black man, which is not how he was initially envisioned in the Superman comics. (James Gunn’s forthcoming Superman is part of the trend, with Wendell Pierce picking up the mantle.)
“That was beautiful,” Fishburne says of this evolution. “Man of Steel is a wonderful movie. If I’ve been influential in any way in terms of that whole nontraditional casting thing, I love it. That’s great.”
When told that fans might have been hoping to see his version of Silver Surfer — the character that Fishburne brought to life in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer — pop up in this summer’s Deadpool & Wolverine, given that a number of other heroes from 20th Century Fox’s Marvel movies make appearances, Fishburne lets out a hearty laugh. He replies, “Well, we’ll see.”
As for the fact that the star has so many movies set for imminent release, including Francis Ford Coppola‘s pricey debate-spurring epic Megalopolis, Fishburne himself doesn’t quite know what to make of the timing. (Click here for Fishburne’s previously published remarks from this interview about Megalopolis, including the film’s recent trailer snafu.)
“It’s weird,” he says of his burst of current projects. Also on the horizon is the Rami Malek-led thriller The Amateur, which hits theaters next year, not to mention that Fishburne recently portrayed former Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers in the FX/Hulu series Clipped. “I guess it’s an accumulation of the pandemic and then the strike. I was doing little things when I was allowed to, and it all just got stacked up. So it’s Slingshot, Transformers, Megalopolis, The Amateur, The Astronaut. Clipped came out back in June. It’s just a lot of stuff.”
Not that he’s complaining, of course. He reflects, “It’s been a beautiful, beautiful career, and I’m extremely grateful for all of it.”
