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Leslie Odom explains why he initially passed on playing Sam Cooke in ‘One Night in Miami’ [Los Angeles Times :: BC-MOVIE-ONE-NIGHT-MIAMI-ODOM:LA]
Leslie Odom Jr. passed on playing Sam Cooke in “One Night in Miami” the first time Regina King offered him the role. No disrespect, he thought, but a movie depicting an imagined conversation among four iconic Black men Cooke, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown felt like it could go sideways in a second. Plus, there wasn’t much time to prepare. There’d be no rehearsal. Too nerve-racking. And you want me to sing “A Change Is Gonna Come” in the final scene of the movie? No thank you.
Leslie Odom Jr. passed on playing Sam Cooke in “One Night in Miami” the first time Regina King offered him the role. No disrespect, he thought, but a movie depicting an imagined conversation among four iconic Black men Cooke, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown felt like it could go sideways in a second. Plus, there wasn’t much time to prepare. There’d be no rehearsal. Too nerve-racking. And you want me to sing “A Change Is Gonna Come” in the final scene of the movie? No thank you.
But and Odom says this never happens the actor’s agent and manager asked him to take another look at Kemp Powers’ screenplay, which he adapted from his own play. And when he did, Odom moved past the fear and started digging into the ideas being expressed, the boundaries being pushed. And he understood that “One Night in Miami” went beyond a standard biopic, making a private conversation public and exploring Black humanity in a way that felt groundbreaking.