The film School Daze was one the best movies of the 80’s era and many of the film’s actors’ careers skyrocketed into a whole ‘nother stratosphere after that the movie took off. That’s great for them, but there was one major player from that film who was NOT trying to be in anymore Spike Lee films and that player was actor Laurence Fishburne.
What most of us never knew was that he and Spike Lee figured out that they actually couldn’t stand working together during the filming of Spike Lee’s School Daze and here’s why according to what Laurence Fishburne told Sun Sentinel in a prior interview:
[Fishburne] rolls his eyes when asked about his experience with Lee. “I`m very opinionated, I have a very big ego; Spike has a very big ego, too,” he says. “I`ve been around for a long time, and I thought I knew more about what he was doing than he did. And, in some ways, I did. But it wasn`t so much that I knew more about what he did — I knew more about what I` was doing, and I made the mistake of telling him that. So we probably won`t work together for another 10 years,” Fishburne says. Chuckling, he adds, “If we work together at all.”
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Well get outta here! On camera it looked like all of the actors got along great off screen because of the great chemistry they had on screen, but it sounds like it was hard for Fishburne to take direction from someone he deemed to be far less experienced than him at that time. Dang, he was right- those egos were massive on that set.
I guess Spike Lee eventually extended the peace symbol to Fishburne because he was able to get past his dislike for him when he reached out a few short years later to offer Fishburne the role of “Radio Raheem” in Do The Right Thing. Fishburne was actually Lee’s first choice before Bill Nunn, who ultimately did a phenomenal job with that character.
But Fishburne wasn’t trying to have anything to do with the movie. After he read the script he was like “Hell no!” LOL. Here’s what Laurence said about why he absolutely didn’t like the script for Do The Right Thing:
Fishburne criticized the role for not being real when he said “I’m from Brooklyn too and I didn’t grow up in that kind of Brooklyn. I didn`t like the script, and I didn`t like the part.” -via Sun Sentinel
Many actually speculated that Fishburne’s refusal was less about the role not being ‘authentically Brooklyn’ enough and more about these two factors: (1) because of his beef with Spike; and (2) because Spike Lee didn’t offer him a lead role in Do The Right Thing.
And there you have it folks. Laurence and Spike were not the best of friends on School Daze, unlike the united front their characters had as ‘cousins’ in that film, and Do The Right Thing almost had “Professor Phipps” (Fishburne’s character in Higher Learning) as the “Radio Raheem” character. Now that I think about it, it would have been really different watching “Jason Furious Styles” (Cuba Gooding Jr.’s “Daddy” in Boyz N’ The Hood) or “Morpheus” from the Matrix morph into the role of “Radio Raheem,” but I can definitely see “Dap” from School Daze pulling that character off.
All in all, both School Daze and Do The Right Thing were classics, but the stars just didn’t align for Spike Lee and Laurence Fishburne to work together on the latter. However, the late Bill Nunn played the heck out of that “Radio Raheem” character and I don’t think that either one of the films would have been the same without what Nunn or Fishburne contributed to them.
Source: Sun-Sentinel
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honestly. I think I have seen all of Spike Lee movies and I always left the theater depressed for days. they were all miserable, light skinned girls versus dark skinned girls with the dark skinned girls always having more morals, smarts then the light skinned ones. yet , Spike marries a woman damn near white. he is such a hypocrite. Larry is a piece of work too. I can see why he and Spike didn’t get along. Larry mama says he doesn’t even get along with her. and one of his daughters he doesn’t support that relationship either. but between the two, I like Larry the best.
honestly. I think I have seen all of Spike Lee movies and I always left the theater depressed for days. they were all miserable, light skinned girls versus dark skinned girls with the dark skinned girls always having more morals, smarts then the light skinned ones. yet , Spike marries a woman damn near white. he is such a hypocrite. Larry is a piece of work too. I can see why he and Spike didn’t get along. Larry mama says he doesn’t even get along with her. and one of his daughters he doesn’t support that relationship either. but between the two, I like Larry the best.
Spike Lee’s film memoirs for Do the Right Thing and School Daze address some of the relationship. School Daze companion book “Uplift the Race” (co-written with Lisa Jones) mentioned huge disappointment from an earlier failed film project called the “Messenger” may have set the tone for future issues between the two artists. Lee relates that tension between them during School Daze had similarity to the scene where Dap collars Half-Pint and Half-Pint says “get off me.” Do the Right Thing offered the Raheem role to Fishburne, who only wanted leading roles. Lee asked mutual friend Giancarlo Esposito (“Buggin Out”) to confer with Fishburne, who still declined the role to Lee’s disbelief. Fishburne went on to successful support roles among others in Boyz N the Hood and What’s Love Got to Do with It along with lead roles in Bad Company and Othello. Do the Right Thing remains Lee’s most well known work and has remarkable timeliness with respect to policing, racism, and civil unrest.
Spike Lee’s film memoirs for Do the Right Thing and School Daze address some of the relationship. School Daze companion book “Uplift the Race” (co-written with Lisa Jones) mentioned huge disappointment from an earlier failed film project called the “Messenger” may have set the tone for future issues between the two artists. Lee relates that tension between them during School Daze had similarity to the scene where Dap collars Half-Pint and Half-Pint says “get off me.” Do the Right Thing offered the Raheem role to Fishburne, who only wanted leading roles. Lee asked mutual friend Giancarlo Esposito (“Buggin Out”) to confer with Fishburne, who still declined the role to Lee’s disbelief. Fishburne went on to successful support roles among others in Boyz N the Hood and What’s Love Got to Do with It along with lead roles in Bad Company and Othello. Do the Right Thing remains Lee’s most well known work and has remarkable timeliness with respect to policing, racism, and civil unrest.