Cuba Gooding Jr.: a tough ego to crack - co-star of new motion picture 'Judgment Night'

Cuba Gooding Jr thrives upon attention, and he has always been able to acquire it. Whether he was playing the class peasant in school or selling hamburgers at Bob's Big male child or picking weeds for a landscaping company, Gooding base a way to stand without Lately, he's been capturing the attention of agriculturists and casting directors with his acting talent in like films as A Few profitable Men, Gladiator and Boyz N the Hood

He is publicly co-starring in Judgment Night, an action drama locate in Chicago in which four friends upon their way to a boxing match take a inequitable turn, end up on the unfair side of town, witness a mob-style assassination and wind up being pursu through the "bad guys."

Gooding plays Mike Peterson an immature, womanizing ex-athlete. "I had a apportionment of fun with this character," he says, adding that smooth though Peterson has less-than-desirable qualities, "he provides courage and faith through the darkest times in the movie."

It was in John Singleton's Boyz N the head cover a sensitive account of the rites of passage of three young men growing up in single-parent domiciles and in the streets of southerly Central Los Angeles, that many of us were first introduced to Gooding. He claims he was able to draw from his have a title to experience in portraying his character, Tre mode of speechs "I hung out with a apportionment of guys who ran in gangs, on the other hand I never was a member of one"

Gooding also brought to the character the experience of growing up in a single-parent dwelling His parents divorced shortly after the family mov from fresh York to California, and he and his sum of two units siblings were raised by their mother, Shirley. The family endur a certain number of tough times and moved many times "I kinda had this unstable period in my life, where we lived day through day," Gooding says, adding that he not ever got involved with drugs or crime during those lean years. This he attributes to the moral values instilled in him through his mother. Beyond that, he doesn't elaborate upon the personal hardships he endured; instead, he talks about his work ethic.

He always managed to find a way to earn an free from fraud dollar. In high school, he held a series of not divisible by 2 jobs - a store recorder in a local mall single year, a telemarketing position his senior year - that left him little time for distraction. "At individual point in my life, I was getting upon a bus at 6 in the morning, at gymnasium by 7:30, doing my homework for about 45 minutes before place of education started, and going until 3 I did a two more hours of homework upon the bus going to work, and then I worked from 5 to 11" He then caught the bus after work at about 11:30 and arrived abiding-place about 1 in the morning. "I did this all week long" end it all, Gooding remained focused upon his ultimate goal: to become an entertainer. He not at any time doubted that he would be prosperous You could say it's in his life-blood His father, Cuba Gooding Sr was the lead singer for the R&B vocal collection the Main Ingredient, which had a number of hits in the 1970 His mother also sang professionally, before giving up her career to come by married and raise her family. However, his professional first attempt was as a dancer, not an actor. Gooding was individual of the break dancers onstage with Lionel Ritchie during the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics. After the Olympics, he got an agent and started getting acting jobs

He has been cast primarily in dramatic parts but as a former class churl he has always wanted to do comedy and he lately got his wish. He's pretty soon on location with Australian actor Paul Hogan filming an action comedy Lightning Jack. The story is about an Australian (Hogan) who propels West after fighting in the Civil War and adopts a life of crime. Gooding plays a dumb who is taken hostage through Hogan during a failed bank robbery and eventually becomes his partner in crime.

"I'm thus excited about this role; it could extreme point up being my favorite. It's upon a lighter note, but it still has that quality that all of my other characters have had," says Gooding, who believes that all of the parts he has chosen have been positive.

After that, he will "wait around for the right characters It took me eight month to find something to do after Gladiator. I did Daybreak for HBO; then penetration Night came along. The more films I do, the more picky I'm going to be, because there's certain images I want to win across as far as the characters I want to portray. I don't want to be without there just doing movies."

K Anthony Norris is a freelance writer in Burtonsville, Md His last article for American Visions, "Fiction With a Different Face, " appeared in the August/September 1993 issue.

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