Marlon Wayans performs at the Richmond Funny Bone on Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18. (Photo by Michael Carico)
Marlon Wayans is always working. He’s a writer, actor, filmmaker and, more recently, a stand-up comedian. He started stand-up to prepare for a role as Richard Pryor, an influential and controversial comic from the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. Although the role never panned out, Wayans stuck with stand-up. In 2018, he released his first special, “Woke-ish,” on Netflix. He’s also written, produced and acted in several films, including “White Chicks,” “Fifty Shades of Black” and “A Haunted House.” Most recently, he created and starred in “Marlon,” NBC’s sitcom loosely based on his own life as a father.
The funnyman can also be seen in the upcoming Netflix movie “Sextuplets,” in which he plays a man searching for his birth family who discovers he has an array of siblings. Wayans plays the six identical children and their mother. The comedian and actor talks about playing those characters, why stand-up is important to him and his creative process.
Richmond magazine: Why do you keep doing stand-up?
Marlon Wayans: I feel like it’s making me better as an artist. Long as I’ve been in the industry, I think you’re gonna find different ways to get to the basket. For me, stand-up is making me something that I never envisioned — actually, it’s making me something that I always envisioned myself to be, I just didn’t know that one of the keys was to do stand-up. I had all the pieces, and stand-up is like the glue.
RM: Was playing multiple characters in “Sextuplets” a challenge?
Wayans: It was the most challenging thing I ever did. It was “White Chicks” and “Little Man” thrown together times six, seven. Hardest thing I ever did. I didn’t sleep – I slept three hours a night. Seven hours of makeup, and then after I did seven hours of makeup I’d work 14 hours, I’d go home, I’d sleep three hours, I’d come back to work and repeat the same thing.
RM: You’ve spoken a little before about diversity in Hollywood, in front of and behind the camera. Do you think we’ve made any progress on that front? What would you like to see change?
Wayans: I think that things are getting better. I have a responsibility — we all have a responsibility — to put together a set of people that represents the world, that represents every color. I try to make it a point to hire a diverse staff of people no matter what project I’m working on. My show “Marlon” [was] probably one of the most diverse productions on television.
RM: How do you write material while you tour?
Wayans: I don’t write, like, pen to pad when I do stand-up. I write down the idea — I go, "Oh, this would be funny if X happened." Or, "What about this experience?" I start thinking about it, and then I go onstage and start talking about it, and that’s when I’ll bust a new five [minutes] out of nowhere, because at this point, I do care. I know where stuff works, and I know how to navigate myself through new material, and land on old material if I need to. I kind of write, at this point, like Jay-Z, where it’s just in my head, and I’ve got a sequence.
RM: Is that different from the way you write movie and TV shows?
Wayans: Absolutely different. When you write a movie or TV show, you’ve gotta sit down, and get on your computer, and you have to write out a script. I don’t write out a script when I do stand-up, unless I’m transcribing it, and I’m about to do a special, and I want to know exactly, look at the words, and my team, and my producing partner want to look at the words, they wanna finesse the words and make sure that we’re hitting everything as hard as we can. But that’s only for a special. In every day stand-up, there’s no script. It’s all off the top of the dome. I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do tonight.
Marlon Wayans performs at the Richmond Funny Bone on Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18. Some tickets are still available. $37. richmond.funnybone.com
