Laurence Fishburne is recalling an incident while filming 1979’s Apocalypse Now that he said left director Francis Ford Coppola “disappointed.”
In Apple TV+’s new documentary Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood, the actor said his lack of “sexual experience” as a teenager impacted a scene in the American epic war film.
“There’s a scene in Apocalypse Now that got cut from the original film, and then it’s been put back in the redux,” the Matrix star recounted. “I was 14, 15, whatever, trying to do this scene talking about sex and I had no sexual experience. Like, none.”
Fishburne continued, saying the Oscar-winning filmmaker “couldn’t figure out how to get me to be any more experienced than I am, but he kept asking me to do it over and over again. I did something like 40 takes. It was really bad. And I could tell that he was disappointed. So I was feeling really, really down, really dejected.”
Despite feeling down over the on-set experience, the Black-ish alum remembered some uplifting words Apocalypse Now star Martin Sheen shared with him, which he claimed “saved my life.”
“I heard Martin whisper in my ear, he said, ‘Did anyone ever tell you you were a really good actor?’” Fishburne said. “And I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You’re a really good actor.’”
The actor added of Sheen, “That’s what being No. 1 on a call sheet is about for me.”
Apocalypse Now, which won two Oscars, followed a U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam who is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who has reportedly gone completely mad.
While the incident wasn’t Fishburne’s fondest memory from one of his first movie roles, it seemingly didn’t impact his relationship with Coppola as he’s worked with the director on several other projects throughout his career, including Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club, Gardens of Stone, and most recently, Megalopolis.
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Coppola’s rep for comment.