I don’t know why anyone still gives a rat’s ass about O.J. Simpson. He’s a murderer, a burglar, and just an overall piece of shit who needs to rot in jail, but apparently we need a TV series about him. In American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, which will soon air on FX, Cuba Gooding Jr. plays O.J. during his 1994 – 1995 trial for murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. Many actors, in preparing for a role, do a ton of research and, especially when it’s a true story, try to meet the people they’re portraying or the ones close to them. Not Cuba, though! He had no desire to meet O.J. and didn’t really see the point.
“I didn’t want to. There was no reason for me to,” Gooding Jr. told PEOPLE during the FX Winter TCA Press Tour on Saturday in Pasadena, California.
“If I was playing him today, I’d have to put on a lot of weight,” said Gooding Jr.
Welp, I guess that’s that, then. Not only does he not see the point of meeting the guy he’s portraying (and I kind of get what he’s saying here — who would want to interact with such a despicable human being?), but he also wanted to get in a crack about how fat O.J. got in prison. Sounds like a kewl dude.
To be honest, I don’t understand why this TV show is being made now (or at all). It’s so boring, it’s old news, and there’s just really no need for it, other than to keep Cuba’s tanking career from becoming completely comatose. Make it stop!