You know her from the films “Next Friday” and “You People” and the TV shows “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Master of None.”
This weekend, comedian and actress Kym Whitley performs live at the D.C. Comedy Loft for a run of standup shows from Jan. 19 to Jan. 20.
“I just really enjoy having a good time with people,” Whitley told WTOP. “I talk about relationships, I talk about getting older, I talk about my son. I used to be an improv comic where I did just improv and never did the same set. … My philosophy is I try to stay away from politics unless something is happening right then and there, something I have to talk about. I used to live in D.C., so I don’t feel the need [for political jokes] except to say the things I miss about D.C.”
Born in Ohio, she briefly lived in D.C. while her brothers attended Howard University.
“D.C. has always been a romantic city to me,” Whitley said. “I used to live on Georgia Avenue across from Walter Reed Hospital, but I hear that’s gone now. I had just graduated from college, my brothers were still at Howard, so I was helping my brother sell some T-shirts. … A bunch of us lived in this house. I think the steps are still red and white. Every time I go by there, they’re still red and white. … I was the first to leave, I went out west to Los Angeles.”
In the early days, she admired the likes of Eddie Murphy, Redd Foxx, Whoopi Goldberg and Marsha Warfield.
“They were a little ahead of me doing the standup part, I was doing the acting part, then I said, ‘You know what, I like making people laugh,’ so I started going on stage,” Whitley said.
She also began acting in a number of popular TV sitcoms, including “My Wife and Kids,” “2 Broke Girls,” “Moesha,” “The Boondocks,” “That’s So Raven,” “Fuller House” and “The Parkers.”
“I really did like ‘The Parkers,’ I played Flirty Gertie, I always in the church, I was the organist,” Whitley said. “A lot of people come up to me and say, ‘Weren’t you in ‘The Parkers?” That was fun, just good times back then. ‘My Wife and Kids’ was fun because Damon Wayans would go off script. I love to improv, but he was better than me. He’d start talking about me, then I’d start talking about him and then I just quit. I’d said, ‘OK, you win.'”
One of her favorite improv roles was on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” with Larry David.
“Larry David is another genius,” Whitley said. “He gives you a scene, he might give you a paragraph, you read it and it says, ‘You play Monina who was a prostitute and [his character] needed to get to Dodger Stadium. He’s gonna pick you up, you’re going to the ballpark, you’re gonna look for some tickets and the last line is blah blah blah.’ So that whole scene we’re filling in the words! … That definitely is one of my favorite things that I’ve done.”
She also enjoyed working on the Netflix comedy series “Master of None,” where she played Angela Bassett’s sister in an Emmy-winning Thanksgiving episode written by Lena Waithe and Aziz Ansari.
“I want to take credit for them winning the Emmy, I was like, ‘Look, I wasn’t in any other episode,” Whitley said. “Lena Waithe and I have become great friends, Aziz I keep in touch with, Angela of course. … We’re at the Thanksgiving table and another improv moment. I was so tired of Aziz saying this line over and over again, I slammed my hand on the table: ‘Just pass the dag-gone potatoes!’ When they yelled cut, we fell on the ground!”
She’s also appeared in a ton of movies, including “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” “Along Came Polly,” “Fun with Dick and Jane,” “I Love You, Man,” “Rango,” “We Bought a Zoo,” “You People” and of course “Next Friday.”
“It was fantastic working with Ice Cube, Mike Epps and [Don] DC Curry,” Whitley said. “People know me as ‘Sugar.’ … I missed ‘Friday After Next’ because I was filming another movie called ‘Deliver Us from Eva’ and I’m so mad I missed that chance. Now, a lot of people have passed, so Ice Cube can’t really do another one. He’s been wanting to do ‘Last Friday’ for quite some time, so who knows? We might all be on a walker and cane, but we might do it.”
More recently, she completed production of her docuseries “Raising Whitley” on the OWN network. Whitley is also starring in Freeform’s “Young & Hungry,” Netflix’s “Act Your Age” and the soon-to-be released movie “Fist Fight.”
In the meantime, you can hear her on Waithe’s acclaimed fiction podcast “Kym,” as well as co-hosting her own podcast “Two Funny Mamas” with longtime friend Sherri Shepherd, together winning two NAACP Image Awards.
“We’ve been friends for a very long time,” Whitley said. “We started way back in the day doing standup together, we lived across from each other, but she became a mom, I’m a mom of boys, she has a boy, I have a boy. Then our friendship grew, especially during the pandemic, she was like, ‘We should give back to people who are lonely and have nothing to do. Let’s do a podcast!’ … Now we’ve turned it into standup. We do a whole standup together.”
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