From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. You can also hear this show at KCRW.com.

Now, of course, Lawrence Fishburne has legions of fans.

I'm sure many of them know him from being the star of the most popular show on the planet, CSI.

He's also on Emmy Warner for his other TV work.

And of course, they may know him as well from his work in the films.

He, in addition to many other things, starred in the three Matrix Matrix movies with Keanu Reeves, but not nearly enough people know him as one of the finest stage actors of his generation.

He is a Tony winner for his work in the August Wilson play Two Trains Running.

In 2009, he starred in the one-man show on Broadway about Thurgood Marshall.

He is here to talk about that show, which is now running on HBO.

Mr. Fishburn, welcome back to the show. which is now running on HBO. Mr. Fishburn,

welcome back to the show. Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. How you doing? I am well. I'm thrilled to have

you back here. Yeah, it's nice to be here, ma'am. You know, one of the things that I always wanted to know

was what made you decide to do that show at that point in your life, playing Thurgood Marshall. There was no way that I could actually turn it down once I read the material. I actually read the material in 2006.

Okay. And I learned so much about what Thurgood Marshall had done prior to that point, prior to reading the script. All I knew was that he was the first African American to be appointed as a Supreme Court justice. I had no idea, for example, that he was

the lead lawyer in Brown versus the Board of Education. I had no idea that he went to Howard

University. I had no idea that he went to Lincoln University, the same school that my mentor

of Roscoe Lee Brown went. And there's a host of other things. There's a litany of things that

is really kind of revealed in the show.

But just the idea of that point in your life doing a one-man show.

Oh, I see.

That.

...