r/movies 2d ago

News Laurence Fishburne Was Turned Down for 'The Matrix Resurrections'

https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/laurence-fishburne-matrix-resurrections-turned-down-1235113237/
5.5k Upvotes

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u/BigBossSquirtle 2d ago

Just looked him up. Bro was in 4 movies and 5 seperate TV episodes. Not even a reoccurring character for a single onešŸ’€

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u/NoAssumptions731 2d ago

I think I found out why. From his wiki:Ā  Chong was arrested in October 2000 for allegedly making threatening phone calls to the filmmakers. In his suit, Chong claimed he had since been blackballed from Hollywood and blamed The Matrix creators and Warner Bros. for branding him a "terrorist".

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u/almostcleverbut 2d ago

Damn, I guess the crazy eyes Tank had in some scenes really came from the heart.

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u/ringobob 2d ago

Lol, I was thinking the same. He did have that look.

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u/OnlyEntrepreneur4760 2d ago

Sooo, Chongā€™s career is in the tank !

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u/bluAstrid 2d ago

Ah yes, method acting!

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u/lolas_coffee 2d ago

Yup. He was a head case. Not enough draw to put up with.

So he just sulked around LA mad at everything.

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u/DaBrokenMeta 2d ago

Do you not know who i am?!

I am The Tank! From The Matrix?!!

You canā€™t seriously be writing me a speeding ticket officerā€¦

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u/buttnutela 2d ago

Get out of the car

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u/Savetheokami 2d ago

Out of the tank

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u/maltliqueur 1d ago

I need you to step out of the car, sir.

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u/maltliqueur 1d ago

I need you to step out of the car, sir.

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u/DropDeadEd86 2d ago

ā€œYouā€™re gonna ruin the sequelā€

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u/George__Parasol 1d ago

The sausage king of Chicago?!

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u/HauntingEngine5568 2d ago

Sir, this is a Wendy's

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u/talspr 2d ago

I think there's great material here for a Netflix series. "I am Tank!"

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u/SN4FUS 2d ago

I had heard that he wasn't offered roles in the sequels because he was being homophobic (pre-transition) towards the wachowskis

Probably the person who told me that just got the cause and effect mixed up. I imagine the content of those phone calls is where the homophobic behavior was documented

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u/sentence-interruptio 2d ago

reminds me of a man from Sense8 Season 1.

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u/BrockSamsonLikesButt 2d ago

Iā€™ve always assumed he left for ā€œprudeā€ reasons. I think the Wachowskis dedicated about an hour of screen time to orgy scenes across two seasons. Thatā€™s a lot of orgy scenes that go on for minutes and minutes longer after viewers have already gotten the point. Seemed very excessive to me, a guy who likes and participates in orgies. If an actor does not like orgies, and if they had religious sensibilities or a strong sense of modesty, I can easily understand why theyā€™d feel conflicted about that vision.

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u/Wolfwoods_Sister 1d ago

I remember renting the Matrix sequels many years ago to catch myself up and I got to the Zion orgy and I was like ā€œWell then, thatā€™s an orgy. Hmmm. Still going. Perhaps I donā€™t understand how long these things go on? Iā€™ll get myself a snack and come back andā€¦ they are still orgying? What in tarnationā€¦ well, alright, itā€™s clearly not over yet, I guess thereā€™s no rushing these things. Life in Zion is pretty stressful, you hater.ā€

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u/seanx40 2d ago

That'll do it

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u/coffeemug73 2d ago

One of the best ways to prove to people that you are not a terrorist is to start making threatening phone calls.

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u/BowwwwBallll 2d ago

Look, just because he did terrorist things, that doesnā€™t make him aā€¦ hold onā€¦

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u/Agile_Pangolin_2542 1d ago

Victimless crimes! I mean who hasn't called up filmmakers to make threatening phone calls?! Right? . . . Right? . . .

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u/No-Communication9458 2d ago

What a psycho

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u/dunwoodyres1 2d ago

And everyone is skipping over the fact that his dad is fucking Tommy Chong.

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u/ToiletBomber 2d ago

Why should we care if his dad is having sex with Tommy Chong?

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u/spunkychickpea 2d ago

I mean, I guess I care a little.

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u/lookyhere1230 2d ago

I Care a Lot.

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u/jim_deneke 1d ago

I'd watch that

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u/onyxcaspian 2d ago

this is the real TIL wtf

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u/robodrew 2d ago edited 1d ago

Because that's not true, his real name is Marcus Scott Wyatt. His dad's name is Martin.

edit: but he was adopted by Tommy Chong! How I missed that part I don't know.

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u/Charlezard18 2d ago

And he was adopted by Tommy Chong

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u/robodrew 1d ago

Woah apparently my brain actually skipped right over that line in his wiki. As if it simply wasn't there. WTF brain?

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u/MisterSquidz 1d ago

Thatā€™s almost crazier honestly.

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u/TheOriginalChode 2d ago

But who was phone?

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u/Queasy_Ad_8621 2d ago

And everyone is skipping over the fact that his dad is fucking Tommy Chong.

And his sister Rae-Dawn discovered Chris Pratt when he was a homeless waiter. She thought he was cute and funny, so she used her connections to get him a small role on Parks And Rec.

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u/JWitjes 2d ago

While she did discover Chris Pratt, the part about Parks & Rec is wrong. She discovered Chris Pratt and then cast him in her short film in 2000. Parks & Rec wasn't until 2009.

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u/deskclerk 2d ago

Discovered? He had been doing many many other works and was a series regular on another show before that called Everwood for 89 episodes from 2002-2006. You're meaning to tell me he was a homeless waiter after squandering all his money while regularly working in random tv shows and movies????

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u/-SneakySnake- 1d ago

One of the worst things about this site is how things will get upvoted and treated as true just because someone wrote it with confidence.

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u/its_an_armoire 1d ago

Yeah, but that happened by mouth in person before the Internet, humans have always done this... There's just a digital record of it now

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u/-SneakySnake- 1d ago

That's true enough!

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u/GeneticsGuy 2d ago

The person was wrong about Parks&Rec. She got him a tiny role in a film in 2000, got his foot in the door in Hollywood, which helped him land roles in Everwood and onward.

Not sure why the person claimed she helped him land the Parks & Rec role.

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u/-SneakySnake- 1d ago

Especially because that "small" Parks and Rec role was one of the main characters of the show, and treated as such from the jump. Just wrong all the way down.

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u/Discount_Extra 2d ago

If Columbus can 'discover' a continent that already has 15 million people living on it....

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u/lolas_coffee 2d ago

Brother, you need to stop. And you need to chill out.

While working as a waiter at a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant in Hawaii, Chris Pratt was discovered by actress Rae Dawn Chong, who then cast him in her short film "Cursed Part 3"

You have "Reddit Fever" which is whenever anyone posts a number or anything dealing with a sequence, someone (you in this case) has to argue it. Then you must push yourself away from the keyboard, snort, and feel smug that you did something. Stop this.

Other Example: "The Orion Parliment has been corrupt since at least 2t590." Then "2t590!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Are you forgetting the TannhƤuser Gate Event of 2u456.

Pure Shite.

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u/Rick__Moranus 2d ago

This gotta be one of the most hilariously hypocritical things Iā€™ve ever read on this app lmao

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u/T-MoneyAllDey 2d ago

But he said it's true though. It's weird how some people on Reddit get freaking triggered over the most benign statements

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u/deskclerk 2d ago

Bro you just did the same shite rofl

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u/glockobell 2d ago

I guess itā€™s contagious

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u/onyxcaspian 2d ago

don't look now, but you've got some reddit crawling up your arm...

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u/sephjnr 2d ago

Like the mirror creeping up Neo's arm when they're trying to find his heartbeat

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u/figpucker_9000 2d ago

They connected all right, he was her side piece

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u/RegHater123765 1d ago

Anything to back up this claim?

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u/lookyhere1230 2d ago

This is like some weird ass Reddit Love Actually shit now. Hard to follow at this point. Anyone want to re-summarize with added details? May finally be time to immortalize the restaurant responsible for Andy Dwyer. (Weā€™re all picturing the spot where Adam Sandler first laid eyes on Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates, right?)

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u/bazaarzar 2d ago

Dudes got like 10 kids

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u/swissarmychainsaw 2d ago

which might explain ALL of it, actually.

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u/Nayzo 1d ago

Dude has no chill, unlike his dad.

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u/RegHater123765 1d ago

I was intrigued by this so I had to Google it. Interestingly, Tommy is his dad but not his biological father: Marcus was adopted.

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u/twaggle 1d ago

He was adopted by Tommy Chong when he was 11.

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u/lc0o85 1d ago

His dad is not Tommy Chong. Itā€™s a close family friend and he changed his name way later in life.

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u/Fine_Land_1974 2d ago

No itā€™s a close family friend that he decides to change his last name to

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u/Assassin217 2d ago

so his dad is gay

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u/derekbaseball 2d ago

I know: what are the odds that another guy named Chong would hook up with Tommy Chong?

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u/ShadeofIcarus 2d ago

Am I crazy, or does his wiki page scream "someone paid for this to be padded and specific while technically citing things within the rules to make an actor who hasn't had work since he blew things up paid for"

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u/CeeArthur 2d ago

I've read a lot of wikis in the past that have sounded this way, I always assumed it was the person's agent or the person themselves just scraping the barrel

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u/Pogotross 2d ago

Have you ever read "Trust Me I'm Lying"? Manipulating small press to create articles to use to manipulate wikipedia to manipulate future press was a pretty standard PR trick.

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u/FartingBob 2d ago

He was really good in his small role in The Matrix. I guess he got in his head "I was in the fucking matrix, filmmakers should be calling me offering me roles, not the other way round".

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u/Greedy_Nectarine_233 2d ago

Yeah heā€™s kind of the emotional heart of the movie, with mostly everyone else being ultra serious and intense. and a stand in for the audience, just sitting back in awe of Neo

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u/mojoman1200 2d ago

Wait, according to IMDb Marcus Chong has 37 acting credits, with an upcoming film.

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u/rbrgr83 1d ago

How man of those TV episode were crime procedurals? And in how many did he play a corpse? :P

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u/dmanstoitza 2d ago

Thatā€™s how blackballing works.

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u/TheOTownZeroes 2d ago

Newscaster in John Q is my favorite

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u/20_mile 1d ago

Bro was in 4 movies and 5 seperate TV episodes

He has a decent filmography. Not great, nothing too recent, but not terrible.

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u/KentuckyFriedEel 1d ago

3 of those movies are short films

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u/Flip2002 1d ago

Itā€™s not me itā€™s you

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u/no0neiv 2d ago

Tommy Chong's son no?