His movies have grossed over $1 billion in the global box office, including the “Scary Movie” franchise.
This Saturday, Marlon Wayans performs live at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
“I always talk about me,” Wayans told WTOP. “My first special, which I did in D.C. at the National Harbor theater, I spoke mostly about the world, racism, politics, then the last 20 minutes I talked about my life. What I found was my best material was in the last 20 minutes. … Anybody can talk about politics, race, state of the world. The greatest thing you can talk about is yourself and discover your pain, then go, ‘What’s funny about that?’”
Wayans promises the D.C. show will be all different material from his upcoming standup special “Good Grief,” which premieres on Amazon Prime Video on June 4. The special was filmed in his late parents’ NYC neighborhood of Harlem, specifically at the iconic Apollo Theatre, where his mom actually won amateur night three times.
“I lost 58 people, including my parents, in the last three years,” Wayans said. “[‘Good Grief’] is strong, I think it’s my best set. … I’m a beast. I’m trying to be special. I don’t want to be that guy that has the same act for 15 years. I want to be that guy that gives you a new special every year and a half and you go, ‘Wow, he keeps turning over new material.’ I’m my only writer, I don’t have any writers, I write my own stuff, me and God, that’s my co-writer.”
Fittingly, his previous standup special was called “God Loves Me,” which is still streaming on HBO/Max.
“That was all about the Will Smith Oscar stuff, but really my journey with Will, Jada [Pinkett Smith] and Chris [Rock],” Wayans said. “The slap was the inciting incident. He slapped Chris so hard that I felt it. I was like, ‘Wait, I got memories!’ The whole hour was on that. I think that was, up until ‘Good Grief’ … my best one to date.”
Beyond his standup career, Wayans is busy filming the new psychological horror flick “Goat,” directed by Justin Tipping for Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions. In fact, he called WTOP from set in New Mexico.
“Tipping is a visionary, he did a movie called ‘Kicks,’ I think he won a [bronze] Oscar for his student film [‘Nani’], he’s just a brilliant young director and I’m lucky to be in the movie,” Wayans said. “It’s basically the greatest quarterback ever, which I play, and he’s retiring, but he has to have a new quarterback come in to take over the franchise. He puts the quarterback through absolute hell … and part of him doesn’t want to leave his position.”
It’s a more dramatic horror role than his genre spoof “Scary Movie” (2000), which sparked a franchise.
“They keep trying to resuscitate, rubricate, reconstruct the movie, but at the end of the day, it was the point of view of three [Wayans Brothers] that’s been a part of comedy for 150 years between us,” Wayans said. “They can do ‘Scary Movies,’ they can do 100 of them, but until we do the next ‘Scary Movie,’ it’s not gonna be good. … If they want the next great ‘Scary Movie,’ you’ll let the Wayans Brothers do what we do. Until then, good luck.”
His most recently played Michael Jordan’s Olympic basketball coach in Ben Affleck’s “Air” starring Matt Damon.
“Great cast, we had a great time,” Wayans said. “Working with Ben was great. Matt was really great, too. I hope to do more projects with them in the future. They’re just great guys and visionaries, man. At this point in my career, I just want to do my best work with the best people. Ben and Matt were great and Viola [Davis] was amazing. I didn’t get to work with her, but just being in a movie with her, I can say, ‘Yo, I was in a movie with Viola Davis!'”
If you still doubt his dramatic acting chops, I urge you to check out Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream” (2000), which may have gotten more folks to quit drugs than any D.A.R.E. program.
“I put my weed down and I called my mama,” Wayans said. “The work I’m doing right now dramatically is gonna make a lot of people cry, like ‘Goat,’ and I just did two or three episodes of ‘Bel-Air’ and it was super dramatic. I’m still doing my comedy, but these are my Robin Williams years where I’ve been doing it so long, I can do it all. I want to make you laugh and cry in the same sentence.”
Listen to our full conversation on the podcast below:
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