Ray Fisher (born September 8, 1987 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American stage and screen actor.
A classically trained actor, he gained notice when he played Muhammad Ali in Will Power's off-Broadway play Fetch Clay, Make Man in 2013. Fisher then made his film debut as Victor Stone / Cyborg in the DC Extended Universe. He is also an active let's player on Twitch.
On the family trivia side, his grandmother was the personal typist of Albert Einstein in Philadelphia.
Stage roles of note:
- To Kill a Mockingbird as Tom Robinson, 2008, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
- Macbeth, 2009, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
- Fetch Clay, Make Man as Muhammad Ali, 2013, New York Theatre Workshop / 2023, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Culver City
- The Piano Lesson as Lymon, 2022, St. James Theatre, Broadway
Filmography:
- The Good, the Bad, and the Confused (2008, short film)
- The Astronaut Wives Club (2015) as Captain Edward Dwight
- DC Extended Universe as Victor Stone / Cyborg
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016, Early-Bird Cameo)
- Justice League (2017)
- Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
- True Detective (2019) as Henry Hays
- Women of the Movement (2022) as Gene Mobley
- Rebel Moon (2023) as Darien Bloodaxe
Tropes & Trivia about his works:
- Actor-Inspired Element: Even before there was a script, Fisher was given the opportunity by Zack Snyder and Chris Terrio to shape a great deal of the personalities of Victor Stone/Cyborg and his family. Pretty much all of it was axed from the 2017 version, it was later all restored in Zack Snyder's Justice League.
- Creator Backlash: He has been very vocal about how much he disliked making Justice League (2017) (the reshoots, not the original production) and didn't care for the finished project. He disliked that most of Cyborg's backstory and character development was scrapped, and felt that this, combined with some of the lines and scenes added via reshoots, reduced the character to comic relief relying on black stereotypes. He also did not get along with replacement director Joss Whedon at all, publicly stating that Whedon was abusive towards him and other cast and crew members such as Gal Gadot; he further accused post-Justice League DCEU president Walter Hamada of covering for the enabling of Whedon, which also involved Geoff Johns. Fisher's experience on the film was bad enough that he expressed no interest in reprising the role of Cyborg (at least while Hamada was running things). By contrast, a Friendship on the Set happened between him and Snyder before the Whedon retooling, he participated in additional photography on Zack Snyder's Justice League, and he is happy to work with Snyder on future projects.
- Dyeing for Your Art: He gained 20 pounds of muscle to convincingly portray Muhammad Ali in the play Fetch Clay, Make Man, and got ripped as well to play Victor Stone/Cyborg (who was an Academic Athlete before his crippling accident) in Justice League.
- What Could Have Been:
- He was one of five finalists for the role of Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. John Boyega got the part, and Fisher was subsequently hired for the role of Cyborg in the DCEU instead.
- He was cast for a role in Straight Outta Compton but ultimately didn't appear in the film.
- There was supposed to be a solo Cyborg film to tie into the originally conceived Justice League film series, and Ray was expected to have a prominent role as the character in The Flash. However, the Cyborg project was seemingly canned after Justice League bombed in 2017 and, after falling out with Warner Bros. and DC Films executives over the hostile set environment of the reshoots on that film, Fisher has more-or-less sworn off working with them.
- When an adaptation of Mark Millar's comic book Prodigy was announced, Fisher expressed interest in playing the hero, Edison Crane. However, he quickly took back said interest and deleted his tweets on the subject. Nobody knows why, but plenty have speculated it has to do with Millar's infamous and vocal hatred of Zack Snyder's DC Extended Universe films (Fisher and Snyder have remained friends and collaborators since the filming of Justice League), including personal attacks on Snyder.
