Haunted House 2’s Marlon Wayans

Professional funny man Marlon Wayans’ takes time out from his busy schedule to catch up with FilmJuice’s Janet Leigh to talk about stand-up comedy, crazy chicks and his new film Haunted House 2 in cinemas today.

I’m super excited right now, I used to watch you on the show Wayans Brother’s when I was younger. This is pretty much the highlight of my day.
Nice, thanks.

So can you tell me all about Haunted House 2?
The movie’s actually really funny. It’s one of the funniest movies I’ve done. It’s got a lot of big laughs. It’s crazy as all hell. You take a nugget of real life and you put it into fiction then you make it into a movie. It’s very reminiscent of some of my old relationships back in the day. There are scenes in the movie where there’s literally a wave of laughter from the audience. You can’t hear the next scene because people are still laughing at something they were just watching.

That must be really flattering.
Yeah. To me you make a movie and you wait a year to see the results. So when it does come out and you see those laughs it’s like oh my God, it’s like you’ve held your orgasm for a year.

Which part of your real life slipped into your movie?
I’d probably say a lot of it. A lot of it is more what if? My point of view on the world and what if this happened to me? How would this escalate? Probably some of the doll is based on some of the crazy chicks I’ve dated.

I think we’ve all had a few crazy exes
Oh yes!

From the trailer the film looks like a lot of fun, was it just as fun on set?
Oh yeah! We had a good time, no tension. When I do these movies it’s all about the love and the passion and artists getting together and knowing they can create and they can improvise and say what the hell they want and we’ll take the best of it.

When it comes to selecting a horror movie to do parodies how do you choose which one to develop into a movie? What sways the vote?
I don’t. They kind of choose me. These aren’t parodies, this movie, I wouldn’t call it a parody. It’s more of its own unique genre. It’s a horror/comedy with parody moments. It’s its own beast. When it comes to different things (movie influences) for me to ‘plug in’ I think what would work in terms of the story of the movie? I’m not going to chase it. It has to make sense because it’s about the natural progression of the character. It’s about Malcolm and he’s journey.

Who would you most like to work with that you haven’t done yet?
I’d love to work with Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, Jim Carrey (I’ve kind of worked with Jim but not really). I’d love to work with Will Ferell. But especially my brothers, I miss working with them.

You haven’t done anything with them for a while. Did you just go your separate ways?
We’ve kind of gone our separate ways for a bit but we’re kind of touring in the US. We’re doing a stand-up tour so look out for that.

So how is the stand-up going? What’s been the response so far?
It’s crazy. People are just wowed by the four different funny perspectives. We got five standing ovations from one show, which was awesome.

That’s really gratifying.
Yeah. It’s literally two hours of laughing out loud.

The kind of side stich where you laugh so much.
Yes! It’s like please, stop. I don’t want to laugh anymore, it becomes abusive.

Do you sometimes find yourself cracking up on stage a little bit too?
Oh yeah! The harder they laugh, the more you laugh. I work off the energy of the audience so if they’re enjoying it, it makes me enjoy it that much more.

You do a lot of comedy. Would you ever consider a more ‘serious’ role?
Yeah, I would do drama but you’ve got to wait for that right role. I don’t get approached much for those roles. It’s going to come my way one day but until then I’m just do what I love, which is comedy.

So, I read somewhere that you mum was a homemaker and your dad was a supermarket manager –
No my mum was a social worker

The internet lies.
Don’t listen to Wikipedia, Wikipedia has me married. I’ve never even proposed, what the hell are they talking about?

Anyway what I wanted to ask was how you all got into show business considering your parents weren’t?
My brother Keenen. Keenen went and did it and he showed us all that we could make it happen, and then Damon followed and then Kim went and then me and Shawn were like, there’s money in Cali, let’s go!

Do you still love it as much as you used to?
I love it even more. The more I do it the more I love it. It’s been an incredible journey and I’m so blessed. I have great fans. I’m just growing as a comedian and I’m getting better every day. I’m trusting my instincts more and I really feel like I‘m growing and that really is the beauty of life. To just grow.

Do you think you’re children will get into showbusiness?
I think my daughter (Amai) will, I’m not sure about my son (Shawn). He’s a very incredible athlete, he’s brilliant at any sport I take him to do. If I took him to play cricket he would kick ass his first game. He’s funny too but I just feel more my daughter, because she loves it and she’s a writer already. She writes cartoons, she’s already writing books. She learns piano and guitar as well.

What’s next for you?
What’s next? I have my (competition) show on TBS called Funniest Wins. We’re trying to find comedians. Somebody has to do standup, sketch, a musical parody, characters. You name it, they have to do it and the winner gets $100,000 and their own show on the whatthefunny.com (The Wayans’ comedy network).

Haunted House 2 is in Cinemas TODAY.