Laurence Fishburne is looking to step back behind the camera and is currently developing a directing project, “The Rule of Nines,” with producer and casting director Bonnie Timmermann (“I Origins,” “Roofman”) and actor André Holland (“Moonlight”). John Connor wrote the script.
“The fact that I’ve been making films since I was 11 or 12 means that I’m a filmmaker,” he tells Variety. “It makes me really prepared.”
Fishburne made his directorial debut with 2000’s “Once in the Life,” which he wrote and helmed. He has since turned down a number of directing offers, citing a lack of passion or connection with the material. Now, he says, he’s ready to embrace a more sustained run behind the camera.
“This may be the moment where I move into the director space in a real, consistent kind of way,” he says.
On the acting front, Fishburne will return for the fifth and final season of “The Witcher” — which he says “will probably be streaming next year, probably around the same time, like Halloween.” Beyond that, he’d like to tap into the comedic sensibility he showcased on “Black-ish” and “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” if only sporadically elsewhere.
“From [my first film] ‘Cornbread, Earl and Me’ on, I’ve always shown up as the guy who will tell you the truth, even if you don’t want to hear it,” he says. “So I haven’t done a whole lot of comedy… but you have to be able to do both if you want to call yourself an actor.”
As if to prove the point, Fishburne played the cut-up at this year’s Marrakech Film Festival, unveiling a formidable arsenal of impressions. He trotted out pitch-perfect turns as Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Abel Ferrara, John Wayne and even Tweety Bird, both during an onstage conversation and later in an interview with Variety.
“I was a big fan of [‘Looney Tunes’ voice actor] Mel Blanc,” he says. “He was really that guy — and I spent a lot of time in my youth doing voices and being funny, inspired by people like Blanc, Frank Gorshin and Robin Williams, who could create entire characters using nothing but their voice.”
“The vocal instrument, for me, has always been an essential part of being an actor,” Fishburne adds. “I grew up in a really mixed neighborhood with people from everywhere, and I was always imitating the sounds of the people around me. It’s just my ear — I have to do it. I can’t not do it.”
“I’m someone who loves language,” he says. “[Recently] someone mentioned my French, and I said, ‘No, my French is terrible — my accent is perfect, though.’ I just love the sounds we make as human beings.”
