Gooding Junior regrets turning down Spielberg's offer

Oscar winning actor Cuba Gooding Junior says he regrets turning down the role of a slave in director Steven Spielberg's epic "Amistad". Gooding Junior admitted he was too bigheaded after his Oscar win, to accept certain roles. He also accepts the fact that his career suffered due to the choices he made following his Oscar win, because he made up his mind to wait for the best offers and turned down everything else. He says: "Steven Spielberg came to me and said, 'I want you to be in Amistad' and I said, 'It is a slave role, show me the money. I am so a big thing,' and he goes, 'I can direct you.' And I said, 'No, I have to pass'." "To me, at the time, I remember this interview I read with Christopher Reeve talking about 'Superman'. What other role could live up to being Superman - he was Superman. I bought into that. People were telling me (of 'Jerry Maguire'), 'You are black, it is a comedy role, you are not gonna win this thing'. "So, when I won it, it was like I had all these things in my life - 'This is what you are, this is what you've become... Now represent that. I have arrived and now I have to live up to this thing.'I didn't know the next day I should have rolled up my sleeves and said, 'OK, now let's continue on this journey.' Creatively, I stopped myself."