Cover Story / Chess in Popular Culture
CUBA GOODING, JR. STARS IN LIFE OF A KING By Jamaal Abdul-Alim
BEFORE HE ACCEPTED THE LEAD ROLE in Life of a King—a soon-to-be-released movie about an ex- convict who starts a chess club to help young people growing up in one of the most violence-plagued neighborhoods in Washington, D.C—actor Cuba Gooding, Jr., never had much experience with the game of chess. Nor—at least until the end of shooting the movie—had he ever met the movie’s real life hero, Eugene Brown, a respected figure on the D.C. chess scene and perhaps best known as the man who runs the “The Chess House” on the city’s northeast side. The fact that Gooding never met Brown until the movie was nearly done represents an unwanted departure from Gooding’s preferred approach to portraying living individuals on the big screen. “I had to step into the role just based on the script itself,” Gooding told Chess Life during a recent phone interview. “I usually like to get to know the character.” For instance, Gooding recalled how when he prepared to play Carl M. Brashear, the first black master diver in the U.S. Navy and the central figure of the 2000 film Men of Honor, he “hung out with him every day.” But in Life of a King, Gooding said, time and circumstances did not allow him to meet Brown and hang out with him in his element. Gooding said he was in New Haven, Connecticut, finishing up Carry Me Home, a movie in which he plays the leader of a family of runaway slaves, when his agent approached him with the script for Life of a King. Gooding—who had shot The Butler before beginning his work on Carry Me Home— said he wasn’t looking for work and had been planning to take a break. “While I was on the shoot, my agent calls and said, ‘I know you’re burnt out, but we just got this script with an offer,’” Gooding said of Life of a King. “They said, ‘Read it and tell us if you like it.’” Gooding said he became so enthralled with the storyline that he read it from start to finish. “I didn’t put it down,” Gooding said. Although accepting the role requiref Gooding to begin shooting the day after he finished Carry Me Home, he still took on the role. And while Gooding praises Brown for being a positive force in the community, he doesn’t pretend that he took the role strictly or even primarily because of the redemptive qualities of Life of a King. “I can’t say I have to be a good guy that gives a positive message,” Gooding said, noting that he played infamous black drug lord Nicky Barnes in the 2007 movie American Gangster. “I felt in the whole it was a movie that has an important story to tell,” Gooding said of Life of a King. “But I’m an artist first,” he said, explaining that practical things, such as location of the movie and, of course, money, are among top considerations for whether he takes a given role. Satisfied with the script and the offer, the Boyz n the Hood actor soon got himself to a set in Los Angeles to get fitted for a wardrobe to play the role of Brown, founder and CEO of the Big Chair Chess Club. Playing the role of a chess mentor with a mission may not have transformed Gooding into a chess aficionado, but the experience has left him with a new appreciation for the game. “I still don’t really play as much as I would enjoy to,” Gooding said. But he added: “It’s a fascinating
game.” It’s also a game of which he knew next to nothing before he began working on the movie. That’s where the expertise of IMs Daniel Rensch and David Pruess came into play. Both of the
chess.comofficials were hired as “chess consultants” in order to school the Life of a King actors in the rules of the royal game. Rensch told Chess Life that prior to shooting the movie, Gooding didn’t know “ANYTHING” about chess. “So the fact that he pulled off this character was a great testament to his acting abilities,” Rensch said. But it was not without a series of blunders, or should we say, bloopers. For instance, Rensch confirmed one time during the shoot when Gooding erroneously referred to a bishop as a rook. Rensch told director Jake Goldberg “we should cut,” prompting Goldberg to shout a curse word that people often insert into their exclamation about how they know what they are doing. “He was not happy,” Rensch said of Goldberg. “But in the end, Cuba agreed, so he let it go.” Rensch and Pruess said they believe their expertise proved crucial to making Life of a King a better
22 January 2014 | Chess Life
chess movie than it would have otherwise been. They say the task was all the more vital since the movie was shot at a breakneck speed that essentially made it the movie equivalent of a blitz game. “The thing is, we were brought in as chess consultants on
“I hope this story is healing and therapeutic not just for black Americans but all Americans...”
the same day Cuba signed on to do the movie, about four days before shooting started,” Pruess told Chess Life via e- mail. “They simply did not have time to make script adjustments, as the actors were barely having time to learn the original version of the script.” So here and there, Pruess said, the director would have the actors ad lib a few corrected sentences created on the spot by Pruess and Rensch. “But they did not have the time in their schedule to really make some improvements with some of the chess dialogue,” Pruess said, explaining that he came up with some recommen- dations to improve upon some of the chess lessons that Brown’s character used to double as life lessons, but was not able to implement them into the movie. Life of a King does not represent the first time that the Big Chair Chess Club has drawn attention. It was an ABC News segment about Brown and the young people he was mentoring through the game of chess that ultimately led to Life of a King. Brown still keeps contact with the young people he mentored through his chess club and who went on to participate in and win various chess tournaments. And while their chess ratings may not have ever gotten very high, they are now young adults who describe the Big Chair Chess Club as a place of refuge during their youth, and credit Brown and his message of “think before you move” with helping them land where they are today. They are individuals such as Wendell Hankins, 29, who worked at Big Chair Chess Club during his high school years and says his decision to go to attend college and study information technology is due partly to Brown’s influence. “Mr. Brown was part of my life. He was a mentor to me,” Hankins
recalled. “Chess wasn’t just about the board. It was about your whole life.” Brown said he never imagined when he started playing chess in prison that his life story would one day end up on the big screen. “The seed for this whole movie was planted in a cell in prison,” Brown said. “To see it blown into what it did, I was just amazed. Words can’t really describe.” As one might expect, Life of a King does not entirely match the reality of the story of Brown’s transformation from a convicted criminal to a chess coach who goes on a mission to steer young people from making the same mistakes he made. Brown told Chess Life that only about 85 percent of the movie is “close” to what really happened. The rest, he said, is Hollywood drama. The young people portrayed in the movie are more like composites of the young people he has instructed over the years and the elements from which they hailed, not actual individuals, Brown said. Still, the violence that surrounds the young people portrayed in the movie is rooted in an undeniable reality. Consider the fact that as of the writing of this article, one
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