Laurence Fishburne acted in a movie.
Laurence Fishburne . Fishburne became the first African American to portray Othello in a motion picture by a major studio when he appeared in Oliver Parker 's 1995 film adaptation of the Shakespeare play . Othello is a 1995 film based on William Shakespeare 's tragedy of the same name . It was directed by Oliver Parker and stars Laurence Fishburne as Othello , Irène Jacob as Desdemona , and Kenneth Branagh as Iago .