Laurence Fishburne is an actor with great authority. Besides his towering presence and deep silken voice, the 57 year-old, probably still best known for playing Morpheus in The Matrix series, took a lot of inspiration from his old man. His love of comic books as he grew up also exerted a huge influence on his playing Bill Foster/Goliath in Marvel’s superhero sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Perry White for the DC Superman movies Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Dressed in a caftan in a garden during the Marrakech Film Festival he’s also a very cool dude. He clearly feels comfortable in his own skin and is increasingly exerting his force behind the camera as well.

COLLIDER: You seem very comfortable here in Marrakech.

LAURENCE FISHBURNE: Yeah I’ve been coming here a long time.

Why’s that?

FISHBURNE: I just feel at home. Any time I’m on the African continent I feel great.

You presented Ant-Man and the Wasp at the Festival and spoke of your love of comic books. What was the first comic that you read and which had the greatest impression on you as a kid?

FISHBURNE: I read them all, I was a DC guy and I was a Marvel guy. The books cost 10 cents when I started reading them and I couldn't afford them when they went up to 12 cents. So I took matters into my own hands—I started stealing them. That’s how serious I was about it. I would say between 1967 and 1975 I was an avid reader.

They educated you.

FISHBURNE: Totally. It was great because it encouraged you to read. They used big words sometimes, ha ha! Like with Reed Richards and The Fantastic Four there was scientific jargon involved and there was scientific jargon involved with the X-Men and Doctor Bruce Banner and even in Spider-Man. You learned about things like journalism from Superman.

You played Perry White.

FISHBURNE: Yeah and you knew there were things like secret government agencies! (guffaws)

Are you reading them now?

FISHBURNE: Occasionally I get a chance to read a book or two. I have a great collection. But I’m reading other things now. I just read Cry Like A Man, a memoir by Jason Wilson who lives in Detroit. He has a nonprofit called The Cave of Adullam and puts young boys through a rigorous 12-13 week program initiating them using martial arts and scripture to help turn them into men. My company Cinema Gypsey is going to do a documentary about his work.

You’re involved on so many levels.

FISHBURNE: Yeah, it's a natural evolution. I mean I’ve been an actor for 40-something years. I started when I was ten.

Your major upcoming project is The Alchemist based on the novel by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho.

FISHBURNE: I’m going to direct, produce and star in it. I’ve been developing it for the last 15-16 years. It looks like I’m finally getting it done in 2019/20. We’ll see. These things are difficult sometimes.

Especially given the project’s history with Harvey Weinstein?

FISHBURNE: There you go. But in the meantime I’ve got The Mule coming out December 14 with Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper and I’ve got John Wick 3 coming out next year with Keanu Reeves.

You’re friends with Paulo Coelho and Keanu. Does it help?

FISHBURNE: It does absolutely. Paulo gave me his blessing 20 years at the outset. He was like, “You’re the guy for this.” I have a great relationship with Keanu and we’ve been friends since we started doing The Matrix 20 years ago. He’s one of the smartest cats I know. He’s also singular in that he’s not like anybody else, which I think is the quality that makes him so exceptional. It’s why people like watching him. He continues to grow as an actor because he continues to take risks. He’s always taken risks. I saw the first John Wick film and didn't know what to expect and I was completely blown away by it. I was like, “Dude, what do I have to do to be in this world?” He said, “Well, we’ve actually been thinking about that.”

What was it like entering the John Wick world?

FISHBURNE: it’s so much fun. It’s impossible but it's the kind of place you really wish you could run around in because everybody’s a badass motherfucker. Who doesn’t want to feel like that?

It’s like being a kid?

FISHBURNE: It’s like playing cops and robbers.

So you were in the second film and now you’re in the first half of the third. Does this mean your Bowery King character gets killed off?

FISHBURNE: Even if I does I couldn’t tell you that, could I?

What is it about playing bad guys that you love so much?

FISHBURNE: I don't necessarily think of them as bad guys. I try to make it a bit more complex than that. It’s always fun no matter what it is.

You’re a military guy in a lot of movies.

FISHBURNE: Yeah. I guess every actor has a thing they do. We all have our archetypes we’re assigned. Some people have greater range than others and I have a pretty good range. I work as a guy in a suit, I work as a guy in a uniform, I work as a guy in the future and a guy from the past.

In The Mule directed and starring Clint Eastwood you’re a DEA Special Agent.

FISHBURNE: Basically Clint is this guy who is accidentally recruited to become a runner/ drug mule. Bradley Cooper is the DEA agent who’s been assigned to find this person but nobody knows who he is. I’m Bradley’s boss who says, “Go find him!” I’m that guy. I’m Joe the boss.

You’re a character called the Man in Running with The Devil, another drug-themed story.

FISHBURNE: This film is a really cool action thriller that we shot in New Mexico. Jason Sabell wrote and directed it. It’s me, Nicolas Cage and a host of great actors. I’m the Man, he’s the Cook, there’s The Farmer (Clifton Collins Jr.) the Snitch (Adam Goldberg), the Special Agent in Charge (Leslie Bobb), the Boss (Barry Pepper) and others.

Nicolas Cage is having a comeback.

FISHBURNE: It’s great, isn’t it? We love Nicolas.

How do you feel about your level of stardom?

FISHBURNE: Oh Gosh it’s wonderful. I’m very lucky to get to do what I do. People enjoy what I do and that's the goal at the end of the day. The star stuff is that, it’s star stuff. I’m a human being first and I’m an artist and I’m a dad. All those things are equally as important if not more so.

Is it true that your own dad left the family and you were raised by your mother?

FISHBURNE: I was raised by my Mom. My dad and my Mom were never really together together, so I never really lived with my dad. But he was a good guy and he loved me. He wasn't perfect but he gave me what he could give me. He gave me a great name first and foremost (laughs)! I’ve been able to honor him in little ways both in the work and outside the work. He passed away in 2013 and I basically took care of him in the last five years of his life. That’s just human stuff. That's what you do.

He worked in corrective services?

FISHBURNE: He called himself a jailer. For around 25 years he worked for the Department of Juvenile Justice in New York City, which basically meant he took kids who had been arrested and put in jail to the courthouse and back to jail. Before that he served in the Korean War where he was a cook. He was an amazing cook, which is why I’ve gained so much weight in the past couple of years because I cook like my Dad.

Did he influence you as an authority figure?

FISHBURNE: He was a major authority figure in my life. His influence shows up in the way I present a character particularly a character like I play in The Mule and there’s some of him in Hoodlum, in that kind of performance. My old man liked to dress well, he kept his shoes shined always and wore a tie when he was going out--stuff like that.

What did he think of you becoming an actor?

FISHBURNE: He was very proud of me.

And your mom?

FISHBURNE: My Mom was also very proud of me. She was the one who got me into showbusiness. I wasn't thinking about it.

How did it happen?

FISHBURNE: My mother was someone who wanted to be in showbusiness and she recognised I had a gift for the dramatic arts. When I was eight or nine she was like, “Do you want to audition for X,Y, or Z?” but I said no. She was persistent and finally she said that if I’d auditioned for a certain part and had gotten it I’d have made $300 a week. And I was like, “Why the fuck didn't you tell me that then?” So the next time I auditioned, I got the job and I fell in love with acting.

How important was Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now in your life and career?

FISHBURNE: That movie was really the beginning of me thinking of myself as an artist. It was the beginning of my understanding of cinema, it was the beginning of my understanding of the world, because I was suddenly taken out of Brooklyn and I was in the Philippines in the middle of Asia. I was in a place where most of the people looked like me, so it opened up a whole world of possibilities. My work with Francis on Apocalypse Now and all the films I did afterwards with him (The Cotton Club, Rumble Fish, Gardens of Stone) really shaped me and formed me as an artist.

The great cinematic masters can make a difference. Clint Eastwood too.

FISHBURNE: I was fortysomething by the time I got to work with Clint on Mystic River and I experienced a kind of filmmaking I hadn’t experienced before--his simplicity, his ease. He has a crew of people who have been working with him for decades so they have a shorthand and don't have to talk a lot. Things moved very quickly and again I was with an incredible crew of actors: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden. It was fantastic. Apocalypse Now took two years to make and I was 14 and I thought that was normal, because it was only my second movie. Forty years later I made a film with Clint Eastwood with all these people and it took 25 days. It’s a different style.

Has any movie since Apocalypse Now had that level of craziness?

FISHBURNE: Certainly not that craziness but complications, sure. The Matrix trilogy was really complicated in every way you can imagine. It was the first time anybody had done a movie where they we were doing two movies at the same time. We did 90 days in the Bay area of San Francisco and the rest in Australia. There were over 180 visual effects shots in those movies so in terms of the size and scale it was right up there with Apocalypse Now.

At the other end of the spectrum you’ve worked with the king of indies Richard Linklater on Last Flag Flying and now Where’d You Go, Bernadette.

FISHBURNE: Rick’s a master filmmaker who makes things look deceptively easy. He reached out to me for Last Flag Flying. “Hey man, I’ve got this thing--and we share a birthday.” It’s been great getting to know him and to work with him. With Where’d You Go, Bernadette he said, “I have one scene with Cate Blanchett playing this woman who’s an architect and she goes to see her mentor—you’re her mentor—and she hasn't worked in 20 years. She unloads on you about what her life has been like and then you listen, and you listen, and you give her the one piece of advice she needs that helps her move forward.” So I was like, “I’m in”.

So you’re the authority figure.

FISHBURNE: Once again. It’s not a bad thing to be.

Then there’s your work on television most notably Black-ish.

FISHBURNE: It’s still going. We’re in season five and I’ll start with that again in the New Year. Our company has a spinoff called Grown-ish with Yara Shahidi and that's in its second season. We’re doing another show called Party Girls and it’s about a girl who became part of The Black Panther party and her 13 year old daughter, and it’s a comedy believe it or not. And we’ve also got an upcoming animated series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. We’ve just got to find distribution for that. My company’s growing. Things are going well.

How do you decide if you’re going to be in it or not?

FISHBURNE: There’s no formula. You just figure out whether it makes sense or not.

In Black-ish you play a grandad.

FISHBURNE: Yeah, I’m in the grandad chair. The grandad chair is very comfortable.

It’s very funny. Do you consider yourself a good comedian?

FISHBURNE: Yeah, I do now (laughs).

What do you think of Black Panther’s chances at the Oscars?

FISHBURNE: You know, I can’t speak to the Oscar thing. What was more important was that the film was successful internationally. It was a worldwide phenomenon and that should be reflected in the kinds of movie people are going to make henceforth. Obviously if we follow the money, there’s going to be another Black Panther movie.

Would you like to be in that?

FISHBURNE: Of course

How difficult has it been as a black actor from the beginning of your career and how have you seen the progression?

FISHBURNE: Things have been changing. People have been trying to change things throughout my career. For people of color, for women, for everybody and I think now people are succeeding in a way that we haven’t seen before. So it's a great time.

How are you approaching directing The Alchemist? It’s bigger than anything you have done as a filmmaker.

FISHBURNE: Yes. I directed one film before in 1998 Riff Raff based on a play I wrote but it was very theatrical, a three hander with three guys in an abandoned building in New York. The Alchemist is about the spiritual journey that human beings undertake, the lessons any young people learn. It’s about pursuing your dreams and not giving up. It’s also about the cultural exchange of a young man who is coming from a Christian world into an Islamic world and recognizing the beauty of both cultures and both spiritual systems.

There’s so much in the book that speaks to people all over the world and that’s the thing that makes me so passionate about wanting to bring it to the screen. It came out in 1988 but I’m setting it closer to 100 years ago, before World War One or just after. The actor we cast as Santiago will be the star of the movie. But again it’s a kind of ensemble piece because there are these seven great major characters including the crystal merchant, the gypsy woman and Fatima the girl he falls in love with in the desert.