Web iofilm
iofilm home forum features news ... shops
From ballet to Blade 19 March 2002
Paul Fischer traces Wesley Snipes career from Bronx boy to the upcoming second part of the Blade trilogy which, says Snipes, is so action-packed "it's gonna blow your mind".
Originally aspiring to do ballet, Florida-born Wesley Snipes grew up in New York's the Bronx where he developed an early interest in acting and attended Manhattan's High School for the Performing Arts. His mother moved him back to Florida before he could graduate, but after finishing up high school in Florida, Snipes attended the State University of New York-Purchase and began pursuing an acting career.
It was while performing in a competition that he was discovered by an agent, and a short time later he made his film debut in the Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats (1986).
Although he appeared in a few more films during the 1980s, it was Snipes' turn as a street tough who menaces Michael Jackson in the Martin Scorsese-directed video for "Bad" that caught the eye of director Spike Lee.
He was so impressed with the actor's performance that he cast him in his 1990 Mo' Better Blues as a flamboyant saxophonist opposite Denzel Washington. That role, coupled with the exposure that Snipes had received for his performance as a talented but undisciplined baseball player in the previous year's Major League, succeeded in giving the actor a tentative plot on the Hollywood map. With his starring role in Lee's 1991 Jungle Fever, Snipes won critical praise and increased his audience exposure, and his career duly took off. | |
|
