Morris Chestnut: A Rock-Solid Hollywood Performer Who Prefers Solid Ground to the Hollywood High Life
By Ramona Prioleau

In the years since Morris Chestnut made his memorable feature film debut as Ricky Baker in John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood, he has worked steadily in film and television. While Chestnut's resume includes comedy, drama and action, Morris speaks in reflective tones about the urban drama that established him as a screen presence.

"I look back and wonder where has all the time gone," he muses. "It's great to be in a film that's still remembered by quite a few people and still has an affect on people," Chestnut proudly adds.   MORE >>>

Morris continues to have a positive impact on his audience, but Chestnut doesn't seem to feed on the rabid fan adulation that comes with Hollywood success. In fact, he's a bit of a homebody. When he's not working, the Los Angeles native and former Drama major at California State University plays poker and spends time with his family and friends. A father of two, Chestnut's approach to the industry has been the key to maintaining a stable life. "The industry has been a part of my life, but I never made the industry my life," Morris reveals. "I tried to keep my same friends and to not [attend] too many industry things," he adds.

Doing so has kept the actor noticeably unpretentious. Chestnut attributes some of this to the fact that his wife Pam of several years is not in the film business. Nevertheless, she keeps him up-to-date on hot new reality series like Being Bobby Brown he notes with a mirth-filled expression.

Despite these harsh truths that typify the Hollywood system, Chestnut has performed in his share of films marketed to crossover audiences throughout his career. Currently, Morris can be seen in one such project, the suspense film The Cave. In The Cave, he portrays Top Buchanan, a member of an elite team of cave divers that encounter amphibious subterranean creatures while exploring the depths of an underwater cave network.

One of the things that influenced Morris to take the role was that "the Black dude lived past the first ten pages of the script," he humorously acknowledges, making reference to the typical plot sequence where the lone Black actor in a horror or suspense film gets got first.

To prepare for the role, Chestnut went through intense rock climbing and scuba-diving training. Not a fan of the water, Morris nevertheless had to get wet more than he would have liked because the film was shot in Romania and "they didn't have any black stunt doubles," he explains with a chuckle.

In addition to the physical challenges that included carrying the gear called for in the role, Chestnut noted that the acting process differs in a film like The Cave. "You really have to use your imagination," because the movie involved a number of special effects and at times the actors were filmed opposite "a tennis ball on the stick" that served as a stand-in for the cave creatures he explains.

Even with all the careful advanced planning that occurs in the filmmaking process, bad movies get made and are distributed. "No studio sets out to make a bad movie, but there are bad movies all the time," he states. "I've been in some quite frankly, but that the way it ends up some times," he adds.

He acknowledges that things can take a downturn on a film at different stages in a production and that as an actor one never really knows when or if it will happen. In large productions where there are so many "chefs in the kitchen," digressions from the initial plan can occur once studio decision makers, on set filmmakers, editors and other crew members add their input to the project. Morris explains that "as actors, all we can do is prepare ourselves for our characters." "As an actor you have no control - unless you're Will Smith and you get in the editing room. At some point you have to trust other people," he adds.

Between acting assignments right now, Chestnut is in the process of developing a dramatic series for television. Last season, he produced and starred in a comedic pilot for NBC that was not acquired. His goal in pursuing a television series is to work on a project in Los Angeles that will give him more time to spend with his family.  M

August 2005