the information to reenact it and I put together a video reel. They liked it, but not as the
killer, and ended up giving me the lead role as the husband,” Burgess said. “There was no
prep time at all. They said this is what it is and I had to basically improvise
on everything.”
Burgess even has roles waiting for him when the time is right. He was hand
selected to be Laurence Fishburne’s official stand-in for whenever Fishburne has roles
in Pittsburgh.
But for Burgess, while seeing himself on screen is a thrill, the real thrill is when he
meets someone and is recognized from one of his roles.
Lawrence Burgess, Jr., celebrating with friends for the opening of “Southpaw,” a major film he had a role in.
“I WANT MY ROLES TO BE POSITIVE, AND
IF SOMEONE SEES ME AND MY CAREER,
MAYBE THEY’LL BE INSPIRED TO SAY,
‘I WANT TO BE LIKE HIM. I WANT TO BE
LIKE LAWRENCE BURGESS.’”
“Everybody knows me from ‘South Paw.’ I’m officially ‘Police Officer 2,’ and people
still recognize me from that. People I served with in the Navy 30 years ago find me on
Facebook and tell me they saw the movie and wanted to reach out,” he says. “Or, they’ll
recognize me from ‘Concussion,’ a Will Smith movie where I didn’t even have a speaking
role. It’s crazy, but it’s wonderful. I do autographs and people take pictures with me.
I’m a little popular.”
He’ll be even more popular in 2018, as he appears in the upcoming Lifetime movie
“Faith Under Fire,” the story of Antoinette Tuff, a school bookkeeper in Decatur, Ga.,
who talked an armed gunman out of opening fire on her school in 2014. The movie stars
Toni Braxton and Burgess plays the local sheriff.
At 49, with an acting career that’s getting jumpstarted later in life than he expected,
Burgess is making moves he hopes will one day land him that big part. Until then, he’s
enjoying himself, making friends and fulfilling his promise to himself to be a positive
African-American role model from a little town called Canonsburg.
“Everybody has their own image of who they are and what they can be. I want to be
a positive image,” he said. “I want my roles to be positive, and if someone sees me and
my career, maybe they’ll be inspired to say, ‘I want to be like him. I want to be like
Lawrence Burgess.’” ■
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