That training shows through in the film: Usher’s celebrity is effectively tamped down, his stadium-ready dance moves honed into lightning flurries of attack and misdirection. He was so slick, and he had so much showmanship, that it would be easier for you teach a dancer to box than to teach a fighter to box like Sugar Ray.’ So I went home and started thinking, who’s the best dancer in the world?”Īs soon as he read the script, Usher impressed the director with his seriousness - “he started doing the Ali shuffle at our first meeting,” Jakubowicz remembers - and immediately started training with amateur boxers, and working with Leonard himself for nearly a year. He said, ‘Listen, for Sugar Ray, you should find a dancer. I asked Freddie if he thought there was a fighter who could play Sugar Ray Leonard. “Then I was invited to Freddie Roach’s gym in Los Angeles to watch Manny Pacquiao train. “I was auditioning lots of actors, and I wasn’t really finding anybody I was excited about,” recalls director Jakubowicz. You do it all until you find your place.”įor “Hands of Stone,” it was actually Usher’s skills as a dancer, rather than his filmography or resemblance to a professional fighter, that helped get him the part. Jackson - he’s done everything, every type of role. Imagine if Laurence Fishburne stopped acting at ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse.’ Or look at Samuel L. But I’m not gonna say anything I’ve been in was a failure, because it’s all a part of getting acculturated to who you are. Viewing his ventures into film as part of a continuum, Usher notes, “People tend to focus too much on anything that might not necessarily live up to being something great. I did this one thing for ‘Twilight Zone.’ I was just trying to figure out what was out there for me.” I acted in sitcoms, in soap operas, in teen horror. “So with film, I did everything to find out who and what I represented. “My idea of artistry has always been: try everything until you find out what works,” Usher says.
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