Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1993)
in No Stranger To The Business It's too easy tor actors to get slapped with labels, and Cuba flooding |r. better known to moviegoers as that tough-blit-sensiti\ e-guy-trom- the-’hood should know, l eu could forget (looding’s role in John Singleton’s Hoyz ,\ Ihc Hood, a heavy-duty social com mentary about growing up in South (Central Los Angeles. Hut flooding, with Ins latest him Judgment \tgbt, is m mg tu make audiences forget. 1 It 's nut interested in lie me the spokesperv in tur films on racial iniustice lie )ust wants to lie an actur. “Because I’m a hl.uk man, liceaiise of mi birthright. I'm a lil.uk actor,” says flooding. ” I lie kev should not lie that I'm hl.uk, hut that I’m an actor." ( loodmg’s part ill this month's Judgment \i^ht a movie .iImuii four friends' harrowing evening m inner city ( Im ago is quite a departure from Ills role as I re Styles ill Huy: 111 that film, released in 1W|, I re struggles against the backdrop of poverty, strife and racial injustice that brought South Central to the nation's attention dur mg the IW2 I os \ngeles riots Somehow, I re man ages to esiajic the endless cycle of despair that traps so many of the characters who live there. Now, in Judgment \ight, (binding is li.uk m the ’hood, hut he’s not exactly playing one of the home I toys. 1 he movie, which also stars 1-iiulio I steve/ and Denis I .vary, tells the ston of four young men who set out lor a Inning match and make a wrong turn into a had ncighlmrhood. I here the\ witness a gang murder, and the killers mistaking the men tor friends of the victim pursue the four across the city as they try to make their w.11 home. “Its sort of like I he H Jtrion meets / )eh Vera the" (tnodmg say s. “In the movie, I play a guy who was the star quarter back m high school, and he still lives m that time,” s.tvs flooding. “He’s a lug jock. I mean, it’s like six or seven wars later ami he still wears Ins letterman jack et. “lie’s just a guy, hanging out with his friends, not taking am res|>onsibiiities,” he s.ns. flooding admits Judgment V/gA/ is of “a complcteh different genre trom issue films like Hoy:," hut says he wants to avoid being typecast. “W hen 1 took on this role, I looked at it as another part," he says. “It’s just another movie with four dif ferent characters thrown together in some hairy situa I ■■■■Hi v % Bv Dw ayne Fatherree, The Vermilion, U. of Southwestern Louisiana Cuba Gooding Jr., star of Boyz 'N The Hood, knows Hollywood well by now - but still says naivete led to his success. turns .iiul .ilinorni.il circumstances." Horn m South Bronx, \ N . (iooding spent Ins teenage years m Southern (aliforma Ills lather sang with the carls ’'(Is R&B group I he Main Ingredient, so (loodmg liesame familiar with the entertainment world at an carls age. \s a teenager he took up Break dancing, and per formed onstage ssith Lionel Ritchie at the I Olympics m l.os \ngcics But he got his first big break while attending a I lolls wood high school, when a friend’s mother saw him m a school play, liked what she saw and tK-came his agent. (tooduig passed on college In-cause ot Ins interest m acting, instead building Ins career slowly on IV com mercials and bit parts in shows like Hill Street Blues, 22~ and Madlyrer. “In the business, it all comes down to enduring," (iooding says. “You base to Ik- willing to lose sour family, sour friends, sour house... hoping that you'll get a break.” \fter Hoyt., (iooding threw himself into film, playing a Ixixer in IWI's HlaJiators, a soldier in last year’s .1 heir Hood Men and co-starring in the HBO movie Daybreak. I le is now sluMiimg a film with Paul I logan, tentatively named Lightning Jaek, to be released in 1W4. \lthough (iooding hasn’t played m any ’hood-genre films since Hoyt, he has had an offer or two. “Alter I did Huy:, I got one rcallv stupid script," flooding laughs "It was rcallv drivel It was alxnit a guv trout tlte 'hood, and lie dies 1 le tomes lut k to life because lie hatl something left to do or whatever. I hat’s the loud of attitude that you find in the bust ness.” Hut “the business" and the people behind it still - hate a massive impact on popular culture, flooding says “I'.very body is looking to do the right thing on paper, but the people in (lower control it all II they show a famous actor wearing a certain kind ol stm glasses in a movie, everyone will run out and buy a pair ot those glasses. I lies dictate the wav that our society is going to work “ I he only w.n to make it, to be able to control things, is to lie one ol the top s percent no, the top five people m your field," he says. Because ol this, flooding has set his sights lieyond acting. "An actor has a certain amount ot input into a film," he says, “but 1 would like to get at the Inunda tion ot that input, m production and direction." Kven though he grew up as an insider ol the enter tainment world, fioodmg credits his success to naivete. “I guess, like they say , ignorance is bliss," he sa\s ol his travails during the leaner years. “I have alwavs been around the entertainment business. It didn’t occur to me that I might not succeed in it." 0 “The only way to make it is to he one of the top 5 percent — wo, the top five people — in your field. ”
