Cuba Gooding Jr. Cried on Set of 'American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson'
— -- Cuba Gooding Jr. is opening up about the one scene that affected him emotionally while on set filming Ryan Murphy's miniseries "American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson."
Gooding Jr., 47, revealed to The Daily Beast that he broke down after filming a scene depicting Nicole Brown's funeral.
"I broke for lunch and wept in the trailer," Gooding Jr. said. "I looked at myself in the mirror and went, 'What the hell are you doing? Why are you so emotional?'"
The actor explained that he became overwhelmed with emotion because he "felt guilty" about his lack of consideration for the families who were grieving during the highly-sensationalized murder trial of the mid-1990s.
"When that verdict came out not guilty, I jumped up. I was yelling and screaming," Gooding Jr. explained. "The man who tried to do another black man wrong, and I never grieved for those two families and their loss. It all hit me that day with that scene, the Goldmans, the Browns – their children are gone."
When asked if he believes that Simpson is actually guilty of Brown's murder, Gooding Jr. simply replied that his personal opinion of Simpson's guilt or innocence had to be removed from his mind while he was filming for the sake of his performance.
"It’s my job to divorce myself from that," Gooding Jr. said. "If I think you are one thing and I’m playing you with that in the back of my mind, I’m missing all the other things you could be."
"American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson," will debut on FX in 2016.
