En Route to an Oscar?

Newsweek.com, December 10, 1999

Happy birthday, Michael Clarke Duncan. You may not know his name now, but you won't forget him after seeing him as John Coffey in "The Green Mile." Duncan, along with Tom Hanks, is one of the stars in the Stephen King film which opens today‹his birthday — but the buzz is that he's heading for the Oscars. Here are his specs: a warm smile and a bright gold hoop in his left ear; he's funny, articulate, 6'5" and 320 pounds, and ... he's a big mama's boy — literally. If it weren't for Duncan's mother, the actor could have become anything from a club bouncer to a football star. Instead, he ended up in Hollywood.

"In fourth, fifth and sixth grade, I couldn't just read, 'See Tom run. Run Tom run,'" he said in his most deadpan voice at a small press gathering in New York. "No, it had to be," — Duncan leans forward, emoting with his eyes and hands — "' SEE TOM RUN, RUN TOM, RUN! '" When he asked his mother if he could read without so much emotion the answer was no, and when he made the college football team, she also said no‹and even called the university president to boot.

Maternal determination didn't help Duncan land roles right away. After fifty unsuccessful auditions, he was so discouraged he called his mom. "Hollywood is too tough ... I admit it‹I've been beaten," he told her. "And she said, 'No, you've only been beaten if you give up. I didn't raise a failure,' and she hung up the phone. And I'm like, 'Mama, ...'" he said, making a pitiful teary-eyed face. So how did that whimpering boy land a role opposite Tom Hanks? "'Armageddon' put me on the map. But people still thought I was Ving Rhames. Everywhere I went, people would say, 'Weren't you in "Pulp Fiction"?' I'm like, 'No.' 'Oh! "Mission Impossible,"' I'm like, 'No.'... Ben Affleck [who was also in 'Armaggedon'], he used to joke, 'Man, we thought you were Ving Rhames. I said, 'I thought you were Chris O'Donnell.'" But, after tonight, no one will be mixing up Duncan and Rhames. Duncan, in fact, is already someone's favorite actor. Who else — but his mother.

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