Marlon Wayans and the Serious Business of Comedy

Marlon Wayans, San Francisco, CA 12/5/12

It’s not often that my heart is broken in the first minute of an interview, but such was the case when talking to Marlon Wayans about A HAUNTED HOUSE. As is my wont, I included some of his upcoming projects in my introduction, one of which, a bio-pic of Richard Pryor, I have been eagerly anticipating for over a decade. To my chagrin and sorrow, Wayans jumped in to tell me that this project was once again on hold. Rather than get to A HAUNTED HOUSE, for which he was doing the press tour that found us in front of my microphones, we started the conversation with a discussion about why the Pryor film is still in development. It was a chance for Wayans to talk about the business side of his profession, and voice his own frustrations about Hollywood before we moved on to another pet peeve we shared: Hollywood franchising good films into the ground. Such is the case with the Paranormal Activity franchise, the which Wayans righteously pummels in A HAUNTED HOUSE. He also explained why he doesn’t direct, the pleasures and perils of being the straight man to his co-stars, and why he encourages everyone to go off-script. After several minutes of cracking each other up over the size of the Wayans family, and the courage of Nick Swarsdon in revealing his less than toned posterior, Wayans got philosophical about the nature of comedy, and whether anything is off limits (it’s not, nor should it be).  You can listen to the interview (12:32) here.