Antoine Fuqua

Fuqua was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to African American parents Carlos and Mary Fuqua. He graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1983.[2] Before turning to filmmaking and music videos, Fuqua studied electrical engineering, with the hope of going on to fly jets in the military.[3]

Fuqua pays tribute to screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto, a frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa's, saying his writing "affected a boy from Pittsburgh living in the ghetto."

[Shinobu Hashimoto's writing] was so beautiful and poetic and powerful and heartbreaking. It was all about justice, it was all about sacrifice, and it made me want to be one of those guys. I came from a rough area, and I had my own version of watching poor people getting pushed down – whoever the person was who had the power, they would come in and take from other people.[4]

Fuqua explained how his experience of violence shaped his adolescence, and played a role in his eventual choice of career.

My first big break was when I got shot when I was fifteen. It changed my life and it made me not hang out in the streets as much, and go to the movies more. Those sort of things are wake up calls to have a better appreciation for life, and a better appreciation for the people around you. From that moment in my life I put all my energy into what I believed in, and at that time it was playing basketball and sports. That led me to a scholarship ... after that a professor said that I should take an art class ... I fell in love with an artist by the name of Caravaggio.[5]

Fuqua began his career directing music videos for popular artists such as Toni Braxton, Stevie Wonder, and Prince. He directed Michelle Pfeiffer in the video Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio which was used to promote Jerry Bruckheimer's successful film Dangerous Minds.

The movie became a big hit and Jerry Bruckheimer was kind enough to give me a lot of credit for it because they used my music video ... the irony was people thought I was the new French film director. No one had any idea I was this guy from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So I used to walk in the room and people would literally ask me to get coffee. And I would say, "No, no, I'm the director", and I loved watching their faces. That was fun.[5]

From 1998 onwards, Fuqua began working primarily as a feature film director. In a tribute article for Time magazine, Fuqua expressed his early respect for Kurosawa as a filmmaker and how Kurosawa influenced his own perspective on filmmaking stating: "[screen writer Hashimoto's] ... working with Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni, was so beautiful and poetic and powerful and heartbreaking. It was all about justice, it was all about sacrifice, and it made me want to be one of those guys".[4]

His first feature films were the John Woo-produced action film The Replacement Killers (1998), starring Chow Yun Fat and the action comedy Bait (2000) starring Jamie Foxx. He then directed the crime thriller Training Day (2001), for which star Denzel Washington won an Academy Award for Best Actor. His next films were the action war drama Tears of the Sun (2003), the Arthurian legend film King Arthur (2004), the conspiracy action thriller Shooter (2007), the crime film Brooklyn's Finest (2009), and the action thrillers Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and The Equalizer (2014), the latter of which again pairs Fuqua with Denzel Washington. In 2011, he directed CIA procedural Fox pilot Exit Strategy starring Ethan Hawke.[6][7]

Fuqua at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival

He co-created the comic-book miniseries After Dark with Wesley Snipes, which was written by Peter Milligan and illustrated by Jeff Nentrup.[8] He was slated to direct Tupac Shakur's official biopic[9] but the project was postponed to allow Fuqua to direct rapper Eminem's second feature film, Southpaw (2015).[10] Eminem later left Southpaw to focus on his music,[11] and was replaced with Jake Gyllenhaal.[12]

Fuqua's 2016 film, The Magnificent Seven, was a remake of the classic 1960 Western of the same name which itself was an American remake of Kurosawa's 1954 film, Seven Samurai. Denzel Washington plays the lead role of Sam Chisolm.[13]

In early 2018, Fuqua worked as one of the executive producers on the Fox medical drama series The Resident. In the summer of 2018, his thriller sequel The Equalizer 2 (2018) was released with Denzel Washington returning in the main role. In June 2021, Fuqua's sci-fi film Infinite, starring Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor was released.

In 2021, Fuqua and actor Will Smith announced that their upcoming film, Emancipation, will not be filmed in Georgia because of the recent passage of Georgia's restrictive voting law. Smith and Fuqua released the joint statement: "We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that enacts regressive voting laws that are designed to restrict voter access".[14]

On December 3, 2021, he signed a first look deal with Netflix and renamed his production company from Fuqua Films to Hill District Media.[15] He later signed an overall television deal with Paramount Television Studios and MTV Entertainment Studios.[16]

In January 2023, Fuqua announced his next film project would be Michael, a biographical film about Michael Jackson, starring Jackson's nephew Jaafar Jackson and being produced by Graham King.[17][18]

Fuqua with his wife Lela Rochon in 2007

Fuqua and actress Lela Rochon became engaged in 1998 and married on April 9, 1999. Daughter Asia Rochon Fuqua was born on July 28, 2002, and son Brando in May 2004. Fuqua has a son, Zachary, from a previous relationship. He also has two granddaughters.[19]

When asked by the BBC in September 2014 whether he believes in God, Fuqua said: "Absolutely. I believe in God, absolutely."[20]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Antoine Fuqua.

• Antoine Fuqua at IMDb
• Hollywood Reporter story on upcoming the Notorious B.I.G. film (from 2005)
• On Directing with Antoine Fuqua nthWORD Interview by Gina Ponce, April 2010