Rick Fox spent 14 years in the NBA, including time served as a key member of the L.A. Lakers’ three NBA championship teams from 1999-2002.
Now Fox, 38, is breaking into acting big time, playing opposite Angela Bassett in “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns,” opening Friday. It’s Fox’s first starring role, the continuation of an acting career that began a dozen years ago when he played — what else? — a basketball player in the Whoopi Goldberg comedy “Eddie.”
Fox talked about making the transition to a second career.
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Did you talk basketball with Tyler Perry? The kid’s journey to the pros is a little fantastic.
[Laughs] You have to take a leap of faith. But I hope that kids get the message that you need a foundation for success. Kids today watch ESPN and see Kobe [Bryant] and LeBron [James] do what they do, and they envision that being a future for themselves. But they are the freaks, not the norm.What about the leap to Hollywood?
My first movie, “Eddie,” … they were looking for basketball players … I figured I’d show up and be handed a role. “Oh, I’ve got to audition?” Then I got called back, walked in and saw six other NBA players all there to read for the same part.
That’s the perception about acting. It’s easy. Anyone can do it.
It is, and it’s really disrespectful. How would I feel if someone showed up and was, like, “Hey, I was watching some basketball the other day and thought, ‘You know, I can do that. Let me play.’ “
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Bassett says she knows her character ‘intimately’
Angela Bassett brings personal experience to her latest role as Brenda, a poor, single mom raising three children in Chicago in “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns,” opening Friday.
“I know that woman,” Bassett said. “That woman is my mom, a single mom raising my sister and I in the projects really trying to make ends meet, so I know her intimately.”
In addition to what she calls the “wild, crazy world of Tyler Perry,” the 49-year-old actress was drawn to the humor of the film.
“This is comedy,” she said, “extremely broad comedy, and I come from this dramatic background. People consider me to be a serious person and a dramatic actress so, with this film, I was hoping those worlds would mesh together in a cohesive way.”
“People like her come along once in a lifetime,” Perry said of Bassett. “And we are very fortunate to share the planet at the same time that she’s here to get to see her work. I’ve always wanted to work with her for a very long time. For her to say yes really moved me.” [ L.A. TIMES ]