Cuba Gooding Jr. stopped by The Steve Harvey Show to discuss his latest project, “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.”
The show airs on FX and has been received widely by viewers except for the Goldman family who claim that the show has turned the deaths into entertainment.
The Oscar winner justified his role in playing O.J., “I don’t pretend to try to understand what any of this means to either the Goldmans or the Browns, but I’m an actor. I was asked to do a role. Hopefully, I brought some truth to it and that will help in the process of understanding the circus that was this time in America.”
Working on the television series came with a price for the actor. When discussing his nervous breakdown, he had this to say:
“I remember when the verdict was read, and it said not guilty. I cheered because you know, I was a black entertainer in LA and I had been harassed by LAPD. I had been pulled over, I had guns put in my face, and the whole thing. So I thought if he did it, then fine. At least, there’s another black man that didn’t get railroaded or you know, maybe it was our turn to get away with something like that. And as I did this research and specifically one scene in particular, when we shot the scene at the funeral, when OJ kisses Nicole’s corpse, I remember we broke for lunch and I went in my trailer and I couldn’t stop weeping. Like I literally had a nervous breakdown and I said, ‘I think I finally grieved for that family.’ I think it hit me that both of those families were shattered, and I just felt extreme guilt, you know?”
– Emily Aikens
