Marlon Wayans: Interview

Interview by Clint Morris

Interview with Actor/Comedian Marlon Wayans
Starring in the movie White Chicks.

Most people, when they’re onto a good thing, stick to it. But Marlon Wayans and his comedic troupe of brothers jumped off the coaster that made them a mint, and onto a ride that, from the outset, looked about as safe as unmarked linctus.

Clint Morris finds out why the Wayans brothers swapped satire for stilettos, opting instead to write and star in the drag comedy White Chicks.

With Brother Shawn helping to pen and Keenen directing, Marlon helped conceive one of the most profitable films of 2000, Scary Movie.

A satire that took the Mickey out of the teenage horror craze, the film made over $42 million dollars on it’s opening weekend stateside, and the sequel didn’t do half bad either, pocketing near $21 million on its opening weekend.

When the studio quickly ordered a third instalment from the brothers, they surprisingly turned it down, pathing the way for director David Zucker to take over the reigns.

"You see something degenerating and we never like to leave something on a sour note. And once you start doing things for the money it’s not worth doing. You need do the films for the passion.

"I mean, we loved parody, it was a great training ground, but we decided we wanted to bring some of those laughs to a regular comedy,” explains Marlon.

Marlon says the first step in concocting his drag-film – which centres on two undercover cops that have to dress up as a spoilt, rich, white-women for the weekend – was to scowl through the video aisles and go through all the old ‘men dress as women’ classics. "With a drag-film you’re doing the good, bad and the indifferent.

"There’s certain rules in the film you cannot change. You just redesign characters. Latrell (a womanising sports player, played by Terry Crews) is very similar to the guy in Some like it Hot for instance, the character Jack Lemmon played. He’s the modern day version of that guy. So we found the common denominators and kinda flip it up, change it up, and change the equation."

Marlon says he and Brother Shawn had always planned to do two-hander films, and White Chicks enabled them to do that. "Right now, Shawn and I are trying to work on our buddy comedy thing. We have dreams of being Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy or Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

"For us, that’s why we broke out of the Scary Movie franchise, because it doesn’t feature us. Well, it features us, but not a lot – and we found something we’d rather spend our time and energy on."

Marlon and Shawn have been sharing the screen for quite some time. Along with their brothers Damon and Keenon, and sister Kim, they created and starred in the landmark sketch comedy series “In Living Color”.

"That was comedy college man. Look at all the people that came out of that school. Everybody who came out of there is doing something."

One of those graduates was a certain James Carrey, or Jim Carrey, as he tagged himself later. "I love Jim. Jim’s an inspiration to me. He’s something special, remarkable. One day I hope to work with him again."

Why not a triple-act and put Keenon back in front of the camera then too? "He’s at a point where he wants to direct and let me and Shawn act. But I think eventually he’ll get back in front of the camera."

Originally, says Marlon, he and Shawn decided that White Chicks would be the start of a series of movies where their characters would have to dress up as whatever they needed to be. "We thought so, but then after spending seven hours in make-up every day, we decided we’re just going to do White Chicks 1 and go on to something else. Man I’ve got a lot more respect for Transvestites.

"RuPaul, you’re a bad man. It’s just not fun. Hiding the Twig and Berries is not fun, heck, I have branch and apples. They’re harder to hide."

Never say Never? "But look, if the audience calls for it, and we’re touched by another idea, then we’ll do it, but we’ve got to be inspired, we can’t just do it because there’s money dangling in front of us. You don’t want to abuse a film, you want… to go onto something else."

There will be more White Chicks stuff you haven’t seen at theatres on the impending DVD though, says Marlon. "We just finished the commentary on it, we’re doing a directors cut because there’s a lot of funny moments that didn’t make the movie. It’s pretty outrageous some of the stuff.

"We have a scene where one of the girls gives Shawn a dildo and they want him to demonstrate on it, because word around town is that she/he is the best at felacio. Shawn doesn’t want to put the thing in his mouth and it’s all the things he does, not to put it in his mouth."

Marlon’s quite an accomplished actor, even away from his brothers, having starred in films like Requiem for a Dream, Dungeons and Dragons and The Ladykillers. "I just recently finished a drama with my brother Damon called Behind the Smile. It’s about a comedian who goes out to Los Angeles and gets taken under the wing by this older comedian, and the older comedian goes about destroying them. It is a drama, but it’s funny too."

Marlon says he finds drama quite a task at times. "Drama’s kicking comedy’s ass. Comedy is so underrated, and not even the Academy recognise this, because what you do is you take your pain and have people laugh at your pain. With drama, it’s just crying, we can all cry, but the genius of comedy is making them laugh with your pain. I think that needs to be acknowledged and rewarded."

And then perhaps, the recently announced Dungeons and Dragons sequel? "Oh hell no. Lord of the Rings had a budget, it was a great fantasy. Dungeons and Dragons they put a dragon on a fishing pole. I don’t think I’m going to do fantasy for a while. The sequel means they got really good video numbers, so they’re going to make a franchise."

And so did Marlon and his brother’s check out Scary Movie 3, out of interest? "I never saw it. It’s kinda like, when your son is cracked up, do you go see him in the crack house. You wish ‘em well. I didn’t want to see it degenerate," he says.

"From what I heard, people got sold the dream and were pissed off. I think we did the right thing by not doing it."

Brought to you by MovieHole