Laurence Fishburne

Fishburne has been acting since he was 10, starting on the soap opera “One Life to Live,” then making his feature film debut in Cornbread, Earl and Me. By age 15, he was heading off to the Philippines to work under the most extreme circumstances in the epic Apocalypse Now. Among his many honors and awards are a Tony, a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critic's Circle Award, and a Theater World Award for his work on Broadway in August Wilson's “Two Trains Running”; an Emmy Award for his rare television appearance in the premiere episode of Fox TV’s “Tribeca”; and an Oscar® nomination for his portrayal as Ike Turner in What's Love Got to do With It.

Fishburne’s film credits include Boyz N the Hood, Just Cause, Searching For Bobby Fischer, Deep Cover, Fled, Othello, Event Horizon, Hoodlum, Bad Company, Higher Learning (for which he received an NAACP Image Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture), and the Oscar®-nominated film The Color Purple, as well as Class Action, King of New York, Red Heat, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Cotton Club, and Rumblefish. In October of 2000, Fishburne made his directorial debut, in addition to starring in and producing Once in the Life, a film released by Lions Gate. The screenplay, which he wrote, is based on the one-act play “Riff Raff,” in which Fishburne starred, wrote, and directed in 1994.