Cuba+Gooding+Jr.

 I believe that a good actor needs to have a certain qualities to help make them so. In my opinion they need to have a certain understanding of what their character is like and then be able to make their character come to life. The actor needs to make the character as believable as possible so that the audience has no doubts about what the character is like. Actors also need to have good facial expressions for their character so that it will be clear to the audience what the character is feeling, and they need to have good accents if need be, so that it will make their character even more believable. Since I believe that an actor needs to have all of these qualities, a good example for me would have to be Cuba Gooding Jr. The reason I chose him is because he did a great job showing all of these qualities in his movie “Radio.” He did really well in playing the part of a mentally challenged man who had a good heart. Cuba Gooding Jr. was born on January 2, 1968 in Bronx, New York. He was born to the parents of Cuba and Shirley Gooding who later gave him siblings by the names of Omar, his younger brother, and April, his younger sister. They lived in New York for a couple of years before his father moved them to Los Angeles where he left them. Because of his father’s leaving the family was thrust into poverty. Even though Cuba Jr. had to get a job to keep his family from losing their home he still went to school. He ended up going to four different high schools and was elected at three of them to be the class president. During his senior year, Cuba Jr. won top honors in a Shakespeare competition, and then graduated in 1986. During high school was when Cuba Jr. got his first real break.

 To keep out of trouble Cuba Jr. started break dancing. One day when practicing with some friends an agent caught them and asked if they were interested in break dancing at the closing ceremonies for the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles. Cuba Jr. ended up performing while Lionel Ritchie sang at the Olympic closing. After the Games, an agent saw Cuba Jr. performing in a high school play and signed him. After that he began to start auditioning for acting roles.

His early efforts weren’t that successful. He performed in a few commercials and played some minor parts in television shows, one being “Amen,” a Sherman Hemsley sitcom in 1986. He was also cast in “Coming to America” in 1988, “Hill Street Blues” as a gang member in 1981, “MacGyver” as Billy Colton in 1985, and “Boyz n the Hood” as Tre Styles in also 1991.

I’ve seen Cuba Gooding Jr. in several movies such as “Snow Dogs,” “Fighting Temptations,” and “Radio.” The one that really captivated me was “Radio” because he did a GREAT job portraying a mentally challenged man who had a really good heart. I really liked how he made his character come to life. When I first watched this movie I couldn’t believe that was him because he such a good job. Cuba Jr. did a good job in showing the emotions of a mentally challenged man who was happy, sad, and terrified. He also made it clear on what his character was supposed to be like.

By Lisa W