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Cuba Gooding Jr. Knew One Of The Murdered Police Officers, Says Playing O.J. Simpson Was ‘The Darkest Role I Have Ever Done’

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 04:22 PST, Jul 22, 2016

Cuba Gooding Jr. took a picture with a police officer who died in the Dallas police killings, according to People magazine. The American Crime Story actor revealed that he met one of the victims of the recent police murders back in February.

In fact, Cuba Gooding Jr. even took a selfie with Patrick Zamarripa, one of the police officers who died in police shootings earlier this month. And it was a sad moment for the 48-year-old actor when he found out that Zamarripa died in the police killings in Dallas.

In his interview with TMZ, Cuba Gooding Jr. revealed that he “cried” after he found out Zamarripa died just five months after he posed for the selfie with the Men of Honor actor.

“I cried today when I heard that. I cried.”

In February, Zamarripa posted the selfie on his Twitter account and in that post he couldn’t contain his excitement to have met Cuba Gooding Jr. In the tweet, the 32-year-old Navy veteran called the actor “the great.”

Zamarripa died in police killings during protests when a sniper shot and killed him and four other police officers. Seven more people were injured as a result of the shootings.

Cuba Gooding Jr. has recently revealed how difficult it was to portray O.J. Simpson in FX’s American Crime Story, according to the Hollywood Reporter. In The Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actor Emmy Roundtable, the 48-year-old actor said he was proud of his work of portraying a real-life character, especially a character that is as dark as O.J. Simpson.

Cuba Gooding Jr. played the role of O.J. Simpson in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and he revealed that it takes much more effort to portray a real-life character than to just put the proper makeup on to match the looks.

“You do your research and try to get his mannerisms down, you try to get the hair to look as much like that character, but when you connect with that character truthfully, the audience will forget what he looks like.”

But Cuba Gooding Jr. said he is “proud” of what he did with his portrayal of O.J. Simpson, adding that he still feels “the residual in my psyche.” In fact, Cuba Gooding Jr. admitted that he was struggling to shake O.J. Simpson from his psyche for a long time, adding that it was “the darkest role that I had ever done.”

Cuba Gooding Jr. also shared a striking incident that made him think about the connection he had shared with O.J. Simpson while playing the role. After they finished filming, the next day, a Saturday, the actor went to his 10-year-old daughter’s dance recital, but his wife didn’t have a ticket for him. And he got upset over it.

“I said [to myself], ‘Don’t think about her, just focus on Piper. It’s Piper’s day.’ And then I watched, and then that night got on a plane to Chicago, and it hit me.”

And Cuba Gooding Jr. noted that the Saturday before the murders, O.J. Simpson went to his daughter’s dance recital but was furious when he found out his wife Nicole Brown didn’t have a ticket for him.

“And that night the murders happened, he flew to Chicago.”

That’s indeed an eerie parallel in the lives of O.J. Simpson and Cuba Gooding Jr.

[Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP]

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