Lucas Black: ‘There’s an Attack on Men in Our Culture’
‘Fast & Furious’ alum gives dads their due in Pure Flix original ‘Legacy Peak’
Actor Lucas Black starred in 1996’s “Sling Blade” as a lad, but he didn’t inspire tabloid headlines like other child stars.
That’s no accident.
Black says he was raised in a “good Christian home,” and his parents guided him through the tumultuous life of young stardom.
“When I was a child, I was still disciplined. I was told, ‘no’ on some of the things I wanted. I was raised right,” says Black, who went on to star in “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” as well as two “NCIS” shows.
Now, Black is making movies that could help other fathers make similar choices.
The Alabama native stars in “Legacy Peak,” the tale of a would-be stepfather trying to bond with his girlfriend’s kids. It won’t be easy. Teens can be challenging, for starters. The trio also find themselves alone in the woods after a plane crash. Black’s father figure must do all he can to protect them.
Black is glad to star in a film that honors fatherhood.
“Legacy Peak,” he says, “is something [men] can sit and watch with their family and feel like, ‘ahhh, it finally puts us in a good light and appeals to our manly qualities.”
The film “shows the importance of an earthly father,” he says, adding it’s a welcome change to the status quo.
“It’s counter cultural to the messages you hear today, especially in entertainment,” he says.
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Black is just warming up to the topic. It’s clearly been on his mind for some time.
“I’ve come to realize there’s been an attack, an attack on the nuclear family … an attack on men in our culture,” says Black, who landed his first film role at 11. “And it filters down from entertainment.”
Black’s character struggles with his own family ties, which makes the film’s themes even more vital, as he sees it.
And, if Hollywood won’t create movies with these themes, others will. Pure Flix produced “Legacy Peak,” part of the Christian platform’s original film lineup.
“We need to have a strategy and plan to combat that negative message about fathers and about men,” he says. If that means going around traditional Hollywood gatekeepers, so be it.
Black had a strong family to nurture him during his early Hollywood days. Now, he has another circle to shape his journey. The actor says he leans on the men in his church group to hold him accountable for his professional choices.
“I didn’t have that early in my career. It was a struggle. Now, it’s a huge blessing,” he says.
Black’s “Sling Blade” became iconic over time, but it’s not the only project that rocked the culture. His turn as Sean Boswell in “Tokyo Drift” gave depth to that franchise, one prepping to wrap with a double dose of sequels.
The actor, who rejoined the series for installments seven and nine, isn’t shocked by its enduring success.
“The story really puts an emphasis on family… that speaks to us,” he says. Characters like Dom (Vin Diesel), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) aren’t related by blood, but they treat each other as if they all came from the same clan.
“We wanna be loved by people, feel like we’re wanted and needed by someone else,” Black says.
Black wouldn’t mind another “Furious” assignment before the franchise wraps, but as of now that’s not in the cards.
“I haven’t had any phone calls … I’m good whichever way they decide. If they want me I’ll read the script,” he says.
I grew up in a nuclear family, and as much as my father and I have our differences, I look back and feel, if it hadn’t been for him being in the picture, I would’ve wound up effeminate or, at best, would’ve had to fight HARDER to wind up better off. The fact that my mother is a DIE-HARD feminist and borderline(at best) misandrist makes me feel like I’m better off having grown up in a NUCLEAR family.
“There’s an attack on men in our culture”
Duh! You just figure that out, did ya?
Been happening for DECADES.
In my lifetime, our popular culture has gone from “Father Knows Best” to “Daddy is a bumbling idiot who can’t do anything without his ‘Wise Woman’ in the form of his Wife, Mother, or even his Daughter there to set him straight”, therefore making it ok to dis-respect Fathers.
Men should refuse to get married, women are trying to destroy us. they have deliberately set out to damage boys education and they have laws biased against us. The last thing they want is equality.
Cynically, a concerted assault upon our Christian culture, civilization, and white men has taken place over many decades. The attacks have been persistent, and takes much of its strength from the edge that liberal short-sighted female voting patterns delivers to the weak men acting as front men in the assault. Men are pressed to continue acting in a chivalrous manner and falling on their sword through destruction of their families and giving all they earned in court rendered gynocentric orders, while the women undercutting and betraying them are nothing like the ladies that these men supposed they were. Men, wake up!