THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 12, 1994 TAG: 9412100035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 167 lines
LAURENCE FISHBURNE and Samuel L. Jackson get the critical notice, but it's cool cat Wesley Snipes who rules the box office.
Not that he's hurt for raves. Since breaking out three years ago in ``New Jack City,'' Snipes has taken on consistently larger and more varied roles. Figure in his offbeat looks and natural charisma, and he's what the movie industry likes to call ``bankable.''
He's also to the 1990s what Sidney Poitier was two decades ago: The African-American star of his generation.
As Snipes walks through the door, the first thing you notice is his shaved head. He's dressed all in black and is wearing granny-style sunglasses. There are silver hoop earrings in both ears. Remembering an earlier article in which I commended him for not losing touch with his tough South Bronx roots, he high-fives me.
Even after he was making big money, Snipes continued to live there - for a while. His New York address today is more uptown.
``Yeah, man, I still roll through the old neighborhood and check it out, but most of my pals, the guys, are either dead or gone,'' he said. ``I go back to Public School 169, where I went, and work with the kids. We do theater games, things to raise the self-esteem.
``I don't talk down to the guys. They know I'm in the movies, but they don't resent it because I don't judge 'em. I talked to this kid the other day who was selling bootleg videos on the street. That's illegal, but at least it's better than beating an old lady over the head and taking her money. I told him there were plenty of ways to make legal money, if he got smart. He listened to me because I wasn't putting him down.''
At the moment, the 32-year-old star is looking up. His latest flick, a sky-diving actioner called ``Drop Zone,'' opened Friday. Bad-guy Gary Busey kidnaps a computer wizard to learn the identities of the country's undercover agents. Snipes is a U.S. marshal who takes to skies above Washington, D.C.
He frowns, though, at the suggestion that his career has shifted from ``serious'' actor to action star.
``I don't do nothing twice,'' Snipes said. ``All my roles are different, at least I try to make them different. I've made 15 movies and only four of them were action movies; yet the ones everyone remembers are the action things.''
``Demolition Man,'' ``Boiling Point,'' ``Passenger 57'' and ``Drop Zone'' are noisy affairs. Snipes, who played a drug kingpin in ``New Jack City,'' has been criticized for the violence in his films. He's often reminded that he has a responsibility to young African-Americans.
``I'm not comfortable with being a role model and I'm not sure I am,'' he said. ``But I am comfortable with being responsible. I've made made movies that could rub the kids the wrong way but most of my roles have been positive images. I was a paraplegic in `Waterdance' but no one saw that one. I had a quiet role in `Sugar Hill' but you have to remind people that they saw it.
``They want me to be the hero forever. If you're an artist, you play different parts. Kids know they're parts. The violence in some of my films is gory. That's good. Kids don't need to think that people just fall over and die nice deaths. They need to know what really happens when you play around with guns. It's not pretty.''
As for the much-heralded breakthrough by black film makers two years ago, Snipes said it came to little.
``They simply didn't make good movies - and they repeated themselves,'' he said. ``The producers thought that if they were making a black movie, they needed a black director, even though there was no one around who knew what he was doing. If you have an opportunity and you aren't capable of handling it, then you lose. That's what the movement did.
``People don't want to see `Boyz 'N the Hood' over and over again. It was a cathartic experience, but after you've experienced the catharsis, it's over. We've got to make movies that make money. It's that simple. If no one goes, then we don't make more.''
The insurance folks refused to insure ``Drop Zone'' if Snipes was going to be jumping from planes. That didn't stop him; he learned to sky-dive anyway - off camera. In the movie, a stuntman takes the fall.
``I got an order from the producers stating that I was restricted from flying,'' he said. ``Somehow, I never got that order. I had to jump. My character would have been inept if he couldn't jump. I would have felt that. The audience would have felt that. There's no way to hide while you're in front of that camera.
``My top free fall was a minute and 15 seconds. I got up to seven minutes, just floating, floating through air. It makes you feel alive, and it's actually pretty safe. But it's no sissy stuff. I did Zen meditation before my first jump.
``When they open that door and the wind hits you, you know it's the moment. I put my hands out to try and brace myself but there was nothing there but air. I screamed all the way down.''
Snipes feels that his roles, particularly the U.S. marshal he plays in ``Drop Zone,'' are not actually heroes. ``I don't come out trying to be an Adonis or a muscle man. I'm not as macho as the other action guys. In this movie, the guy I play is particularly softer. He gets beat up.''
Born in Orlando, Fla., Snipes grew up in a single-parent home in the South Bronx. At New York's High School for the Performing Arts, he studied to be a dancer, but also took acting classes. His first real show-biz job was working in a traveling puppet show called Struttin' Street Stuff.
Snipes enrolled in the theater arts program at the State University of New York at Purchase and has done Shakespeare. On Broadway, he did the Vietnam drama ``The Boys in Winter'' and ``Execution of Justice.'' His first film was the 1986 Goldie Hawn football comedy ``Wildcats.'' Spike Lee noticed him in the Michael Jackson video, ``Bad,'' and cast him in ``Mo' Better Blues'' and ``Jungle Fever.''
He particularly likes his 1992 comedy hit ``White Men Can't Jump'' ``because I did half the writing. I made up the lines as we went along.''
Snipes, who is divorced and has a 5-year-old son, is reteaming with ``White Man'' co-star Woody Harrelson next year in ``The Money Train.''
``We play two guys who have grown up like brothers and we're going to rob a train in New York,'' he said. ``It's a heist movie. You get hooked into how we're going to pull it off.''
Next, he'll be seen as a drag queen, opposite Patrick Swayze, in ``Wong Foo, Thank You Julie Newmar.'' Snipes has no qualms about appearing in a dress.
``People will have a good time,'' he said. ``Patrick looks great in a dress. I don't look so hot. People will get over their biases and bigotry about transvestites, but that's, of course, only after they give up their money to see the movie.''
His own production of ``Black Panthers'' goes before the cameras sometime next year. Asked if it'll be controversial, Snipes slyly pointed out, ``It'll be both controversial and commercial.''
He's also been encouraged to try directing, but Snipes says he isn't ready.
``I know I'm good at what I do now - acting. I've trained for it. I've prepared. I'm ready. When I go on the set as a director, I don't want the crew dropping sandbags on me. I'll be ready.
``But I ain't cutting any albums. I ain't going into boxing. I know my speciality.''
Returning to the subject of responsibility, Snipes points to the music industry more than the movies.
``The people that allow it to get out are the guilty ones,'' he said. ``They're pushing songs about guys who sing about how `I don't want a relationship. I just want the sex tonight.' Then, at the same time, there's a national crisis about teenage pregnancies. Right?
``We have to remember that the chickens eventually come home to roost. Call it a cliche, but it's true. When the L.A. riots started, there was nowhere to run. Somebody should have thought about that before.'' MEMO: WESLEY SNIPES FILMOGRAPHY
``Wildcats'' (1986)
``Streets of Gold'' (1986)
``Bad'' (1987, Michael Jackson video)
``Major League'' (1989)
``King of New York'' (1990)
``Mo' Better Blues'' (1990)
``Jungle Fever'' (1991)
``New Jack City'' (1991)
``The Waterdance'' (1991)
``Vietnam War Story'' (1992, TV)
``White Men Can't Jump'' (1992)
``Passenger 57'' (1992)
``Boiling Point'' (1993)
``Demolition Man'' (1993)
``Rising Sun'' (1993)
``Sugar Hill'' (1994)
``Drop Zone'' (1994)
``The Money Train'' (1995)
``Wong Foo, Thank You Julie Newmar'' (1995)
``Black Panthers'' (1996) ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Skydivers...in "Drop Zone"...
Snipes in "New Jack City"...
Snipes in "Demolition Man"...
20th Century Fox photo
Wesley Snipes stars as Roemello Skuggs in "Sugar Hill."
by CNB