No stranger to comedy, Mr. Williams turns in a rather subdued – but still hilarious – performance as Delicious, J-Jizzy's right-hand man. Read what he has to say about working it in a PG-rated movie, collaborating with Charlie Murphy, and not being pigeonholed into a pimp persona.
We all know you're a racy comedian. How did you turn "the F word" PG?
I do it the same way that I do it as a parent. If I want to curse, I go to the bathroom and shut the door and curse in there and then I come out. "Hi kids!" It's like I didn't curse.
In The Perfect Holiday, your character, Delicious, helps Charlie Murphy's character, J-Jizzy, field ridiculous pitches for songs and music videos. How do you react when absurd offers pop up in your own career?
I laugh, 'cuz I'm a comedian! I don't know how most people handle it, but I chuckle. Pitches are just ideas, and some are crazy and some are stupid. There's a very fine line between crazy and stupid, so if you like crazy, prepare to deal with a lot of stupid. So when they're good, I use them, and when they're not, I laugh.
What's the difference between you and Charlie Murphy, in terms of your styles of comedy?
He's quicker than me! (Laughs) Quicker and far more brutal than me, so I'm always playing catch-up, but there are a couple of things that he admires about the way I do comedy. I don't know what they are, but that's what he says. (Laughs) So, it made for a good thing for us. I enjoyed working with him and I can't wait to do it again.
Is J-Jizzy's character loosely based on P. Diddy?
I don't know. You know, that's the thing about movies. Unless you wrote the movie, you don't know what people are thinking! And so, what I had to do was, once I found out who was in the movie, I wasn't really concerned with who was what. I was concerned with, "Wow, this is a great movie. Don't let me be the person who messes it up." I wouldn't say "loose" anything - it is what it is.
You're known for your pimp persona. Sometimes when you play roles there are scenes where you degrade women. How do you explain that to your daughters?
I explain to my daughters that there are... there's not one type of anything. Nothing is all good, is what I explain. And I explain that there are nice white people and there are bad white people, and there are nice black people and there are bad black people. I explain that. I explain that people are good and things are bad, and that people make mistakes. Those are the things that I explain.
I'm not in charge of all women. I'm in charge of my daughters and my significant others, and those are people that I don't degrade. And I don't degrade the women who I come in contact with.
Now, I degrade men AND women, so since I degrade men and women, then degrading is just part of what I do as a stand-up comedian, which is why, when offered the opportunity to give my kids one of the most beautiful movies for a holiday season, that's what really mattered to me. And so even though on one hand a degrader of women may be what the role calls for that I might have to play, I might also have to play an axe murderer, but I'm able to explain to my children that daddy's NOT an axe murderer, and the blessing is my kids are so smart they don't even THINK daddy's an axe murderer if he plays one, because they understand he acts for a living.
You've been popularized by your role as Money Mike in Friday After Next. Have you found that people typecast you, and how have you grown to evolve out of that role to branch out into different things?
Well, you know, everybody's an individual but I can at least speak for myself and for myself, I don't have to try to be multi-faceted because I am. (Laughs) And since I am multi-faceted, then range is not a problem. Not only am I grown, I'm in a position that I get to do what I want to do, and what I want to do is, if I'm doing American Hustle and ["The Boondocks'"] Slickback, if I'm doing Money Mike, I was doing those roles because those are the roles I wanted to do. It has nothing to do with typecasting. I can turn down any role at any time. There's no amount of money that's going to make me do a role that I don't want to do.
Having said that, I'm in a position where I get to pick what I want to do. And so when I was doing Money Mike, I wanted to do that role. And now that I'm doing The Perfect Holiday, that's why I'm excited. And guess what? It's getting ready to BE the holidays. Can you beat that? Imagine what our Christmas is going to be like, the fact that we're watching daddy in a holiday movie and it's the holidays. I'm looking like a pimp RIGHT NOW at the house, ya dig? (Laughter)
What did you take from the all-star cast in The Perfect Holiday?
As a stand-up comic, everything that I do is adrenaline. [If] I'm in something, I'm looking for a project where I'm go go go go go, and that was not the dynamic of my role. So you gotta understand, [in this film] I'm out of my element. You can IMDB me and see how many projects I've done, so we're not talking to Denzel here. We're talking about a dude who has done less projects than anybody in film school right now I'm a novice. So as a novice actor, the best situation that you could ever hope for is to have a bangin' cast, a bangin' script, a bangin' director and have it be a movie that anybody could watch and you get to show a little acting skill.
And they can't say you were typecast 'cuz they just asked you, "Why are you playing another pimp role?" and now you're doing the direct opposite and they still got the opposite question, so you understand that it is what it is and what a blessing to have done all that and to have ended up in this movie. And so, because it IS the holiday season and because it IS a holiday, I'm feeling good about everything and I hope that you are as well!
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