Marlon Wayans is either the youngest of a comedic dynasty or the Energizer Bunny of comedy. Probably a little of both.
In 2014 alone, Wayans co-produced, co-wrote and starred in "A Haunted House 2" (a year after "A Haunted House" brought in more than $48 million at the box office), hosted the competition series "Funniest Wins" on TBS, launched an online showcase for urban comedians called whatthefunny.com and toured with his three elder brothers — Keenen, Damon and Shawn — for the first time in years.
"I've been working so hard this year — a lot of traveling, a lot of stand-up," the 42-year-old comic says over the phone from his home in Los Angeles. "And when I get off the plane from doing stand-up, I go right into writing or meetings. I literally don't have days off."
Not that he's complaining — or letting up. Wayans is happily kicking off 2015 with a cross-country trek, including six shows at the Baltimore Comedy Factory over this weekend. Being funny, apparently, is a full-time gig.
In conversation as 2104 was winding to a close, Wayans spoke about the merits of such a punishing schedule, why stand-up is important and whether movie theaters could be seeing a "White Chicks 2" anytime soon.
You've had a pretty busy 2014. You had the Web show, and you had the TBS show. You've been running.
I had a crazy 2014, and I'm looking forward to an even crazier 2015. I've got a couple movies that I'm writing, one that I hope to be closing a deal on soon and be filming sometime in the first quarter. But in the meantime, I'll be touring and working. This year, I think I'm going to work toward doing a [TV] special.
Squeezing stand-up into your schedule — why do you keep doing that? I've got to believe that you'd have plenty to do without doing the dates and the road work and everything else.
Because it's building me as a writer, it's building me as an artist, it's building me as a comedian, it's building a sharper perspective on comedy. I'm able to dissect things a lot better and analyze things better. I'm able to the hear audiences laugh.
I think you get better the more you do stand-up comedy. You're forced to get better. Every weekend, you have the responsibility of making thousands of people laugh with one joke. It takes time to perfect that joke, it takes time to work that material. And you're really working yourself, the instrument of yourself — the more I can do that, the more I can apply those lessons into all the other writing that I do, whether it be my movies or TV or Internet stuff.
Comedy's a science. So the more you practice, the more things blow up in your face, the better you get.
Times being the way they are, with the Internet and such immediate dispersal of information and such, added to the rather sensitive nature of much of the current events going on, is this a tough time to be doing stand-up comedy? Or does all that make it rather easy?
It's very tough. A comedian's head is on the chopping board all the time. Nowadays, some comedians' careers are killed based on a joke they tried out in a club. I don't think that it's fair.
In stand-up, you're going to offend some people sometimes. Not everything you say is perfect. When you step on that stage, it's not perfected material all the time. It's material that you're trying to perfect.
So until I'm ready to put out an HBO special, and I'm saying I stand by every last thing that I say, then you can judge that material. But until then, it's like Picasso doing a painting, and he goes, "Eh, I don't like this one," and he throws it out. And somebody else uncrumples the paper and puts it on the Internet and goes, "Man, this is hot. Picasso did this." And Picasso's like, "No, this is just something I was sketching. I wasn't ready to put it out."
Any chance we might get a "White Chicks 2" this year?
I'm hoping. That's one of the projects we're talking about doing. It's one project that everybody begs us to do a sequel to. So hopefully, we can make that happen this year. That'd be great for 2015.
It's the hardest movie I've ever done, but the one movie I would probably enjoy doing a sequel to. I can see how we could make it bigger, better and funnier.
Now it seems like you're moving into almost a mentor phase, with whatthefunny.com. How is that working out for you?
It's going good. Right now, we're looking for our next step in financing. But it's a lot of fun, working with this up-and-coming talent, and a lot of fun for me — it's a chance for me to have a playground and go play myself.
What do you think of the new talent that's coming in?
There's some really talented people out there. When I did my show 'Funniest Wins' — hopefully we get picked up for next season, it's in flux right now — there's a lot of strong talent out there. Sydney Castillo, Jenny Zigrino, Christina Pazsitzky, Billy Sorrells, Key Lewis — there's some really talented people on that show.
I'm just happy to kind of help follow them and put them on TV and help work with them on their sketches. It's kind of like behind the scenes of a sketch show. Between that and whathefunny, I can really help nurture that next tier of comedians, like my brother helped with "In Living Color."