For Wendell Pierce and Courtney B. Vance, James Earl Jones loomed large

James Earl Jones had already made a lifetime impression on Wendell Pierce by the time Pierce patiently waited in a receiving line to meet Jones after his opening night performance of August Wilson’s “Fences” nearly 40 years ago.

Years earlier, Jones had mesmerized Pierce in the 1970 film “The Great White Hope,” embodying integrity, creativity and dignity in the role of the boxer Jack Jefferson. The performance inspired a teenage Pierce as he began his studies at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. That, he decided, was the type of actor he yearned to be.

Pierce told Jones of his impact. “Are you an actor?” Pierce recalled Jones asking in his barreling baritone of a voice. Delighted to learn that he was, Jones discussed how he enjoyed the night, but was glad it was over. There was shared energy between the actors and audience except the hole where the critics sat stoic and unmoved. They wouldn’t be there after opening night.

“Now that it’s over, there won’t be that hole there,” Jones said. “People can just respond to the play. That’s the great thing about doing theater. It’s that energy between the audience and the performance. Don’t you find that?”

It’s a moment Pierce cherishes after carving his own impactful career by starring in television shows like “The Wire” and “Treme” and on Broadway in “Death of a Salesman.”

“I knew I was part of a collective whole of the people who had seen it that would have this unique, seminal experience that would be something that you had to be there to see,” Pierce said. “And I feel privileged that I was a part of that very few, especially in theater performances with Mr. Jones, that got to see it.”

Art reflects society’s values, hopes and dreams, he said. An actor’s mission is to project those onto a communal setting. No one did it better than Jones, who died at 93 on Monday.

“The more specific you are and the more authentic and truthful you are, like he was, the more universal it becomes,” Pierce said. “That’s why people identify with his famous performances, because we all were touched by it because he was so truthful, so authentic that it spoke to all of us.”

Jones’ voice is instantly recognizable for his work in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, “The Lion King” and “The Simpsons.” His face is known for classics like “Coming to America,” “The Sandlot” and “Field of Dreams.” However, it may have been Broadway where Jones’ presence resonated so personally and profoundly not just with the audience, but with a young crop of Black actors who cherished seeing male actors of color in leading roles.

“He’s my hero,” Denzel Washington told Variety. “My college theater career started because of ‘The Emperor Jones’ and ‘Othello’ with James Earl Jones.”

“I wasn’t going to be as big as him,” Washington added. “I wanted to sound like him. He was everything to me as a budding actor. He was who I wanted to be.”

Courtney B. Vance described acting alongside Jones in “Fences” as “the seminal event of my life.” High expectations existed around a play that showcased a Black playwright (Wilson), Black director (Lloyd Richards) and Black lead actor (Jones).

Vance often sensed a power struggle, but for the most part, he was just trying to find his footing.

In the play, Vance played Cory, the son of the protagonist, Jones’ Troy Maxson. Vance was 25 years old at the time, planting the seeds for his own long career, which includes Emmy and Tony wins. Everyone else in the cast knew one another. Vance originally felt isolated.

“They all knew him,” Vance said. “He was Jimmy and James Earl Jones. I didn’t know what to call him, and of course, in the play, he demanded that his son – ‘You put a sir on that when you speak to me. Yes sir.’ So, he was sir to me and that’s what I called him.”

Vance was referencing a memorable scene in which his character asked his father if he liked him. Jones, as Maxson, forcefully responded that he provided for him and that should suffice.

“It’s so timeless,” Vance said. “It’s the struggle between fathers and sons.”

Jones and Vance giggled through rehearsing the scene for the first couple of weeks. “It was too deep for us, I guess,” Vance said. Finally, Richards requested they go deeper.

“Jimmy had a sinus thing, so the snot would just roll on out of his nose and he would just let it hang there with the snot just bouncing in the air and you didn’t know whether to look at him or the snot or to the ground,” Vance said. “It was very otherworldly.”

Jones made his Broadway debut in the 1950s, receiving three Tony Awards (one for lifetime achievement) over the decades while playing a range of rich roles like Maxson, or Jefferson in the 1967 play “The Great White Hope,” written by Howard Sackler, that was adapted into the movie Pierce loved.

In the years before Pierce met Jones at “Fences,” he had arrived in New York to study at Juilliard, “lost, uncomfortable, a little nervous about stepping into this new chapter of my life with studying theater,” he said.

In 1982, he watched Jones perform in “Othello” at the Winter Garden Theater.

“It gave me focus and it made me come to understand that I was in the right place at the right time and doing the work that I needed to do, because I saw what I possibly could become embodied in this man playing the Moor,” Pierce said. “That’s how you know that something is authentic, the lasting impact that it has on the people that receive it.”

Vance said he had made plans to visit Jones later this month. “The world shifted on me,” Vance said. “I’ll have to see him in my dreams.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.