24 January 2007
Silly Nick Cannon as Arthur Ashe?
Word is Will Smith is producing a bio-pic about Tennis Hall of Famer Arthur Ashe and has hired Nick Cannon to play Ashe. With some of the biggest films in the past few years being bio-pic or based on real-life characters, can Will trust Nick Cannon not to drop the ball?
Though Nick doesn’t have a ton of experience as a dramatic actor, it sounds like the project is pretty major. He says Will Smith is producting it, they’ve been working with Arthur Ashe’s wife on the script, and they’re looking for a director. They’re planning to rip off the Walk the Line formula for the film, in other words it’ll end when the man in the story reaches the age of the actor who is playing him. Since Nick Cannon isn’t exactly old, we’re talking about a movie based primarily on his youth, which is to say none of the interesting stuff that happened in his later years when he became an activist. Cannon says, “We wanna deal with the rise of Arthur Ashe, and how he got to be who he was. It’ll be the young-man years.”
Nick Cannon was last seen as part of the huge cast of Bobby. Before that he’d mostly done a lot of fluff, so you have to assume that his performance there had something to do with Will Smith’s production company targeting him for a serious acting role like this.
Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. ( 1943 –1993) was a prominent African American tennis player who was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. During his playing career, he won three Grand Slam titles. Ashe is also remembered for his efforts to further social causes.
In 1965, Ashe won the individual NCAA championship and was a chief contributor in UCLA’s winning the team NCAA tennis championship. While at UCLA, Ashe was initiated as a member of the Upsilon chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi … after several years of lower levels of success, Ashe played his best season ever by winning Wimbledon, unexpectedly defeating Jimmy Connors in the final. He remains the only African American player ever to win the men’s singles at Wimbledon,
The story of Ashe’s life turned from success to tragedy in 1988, however, when Ashe discovered he had contracted HIV during the blood transfusions he had received during one of his two heart surgeries. He and his wife kept his illness private until April 8, 1992, when reports that the newspaper USA Today was about to publish a story about his condition forced him to make a public announcement that he had the disease. In the last year of his life, Arthur Ashe did much to call attention to AIDS sufferers worldwide. Two months before his death, he founded the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, to help address issues of inadequate health care delivery and was named Sports Illustrated magazine’s Sportsman of the Year. He also spent much of the last years of his life writing his memoir Days of Grace, finishing the manuscript less than a week before his death.
source: wikipedia
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3 Comments currently posted.
JOE says:
Just Me says:
I think Nick will do quite well. He did an excellent job in “Drumline” and has matured more since then. Just because he has a light hearted nature does not mean he is silly.
Good going Nick!
QueenB.D says:
I dont actually think hes the greatest actor but somehow I got a feeling he might just pull it off. If you sqwint your eye they look the same lol
although he iS goofy, i think he can pull it off..
with acting lessons that is, look at Will Smith, who could have been considered goofy after Fresh Prince