Because you're so well known for comedies, was it a fight to get cast in Crossover?
“No, not at all. That’s a testament to how much I really enjoyed [writer/director] Preston Whitmore. I met him at lunch. We talked, and then he received a copy of me doing the The Dave Chappelle Show and doing a couple other things that I’d done a while earlier. He looked at that and said, ‘You know, Wayne, I’ve got this role and I think that I’d love to have you do this because people would really be surprised with you being cast in it. And I think that you would do a great job.’ So to immediately have that faith, that was a nice pat on the back.”
Is it nice not to have to be funny?
“It’s nice pressure to not have to deliver that, but then the pressure is almost double on the other end because you don’t want to suck doing a dramatic piece. You don’t want anyone to go, ‘Ah, see. He couldn’t do it.’ So I’m feeling the other pressure and I just hope that people…this isn’t going to win any awards, but at the end of the day I just want folks leaving the movie going, ‘Huh, Wayne was good.’”
But this isn’t your first dramatic role.
“No, it wasn’t my first dramatic work but in a time when folks know you for one specific thing, like comedy specifically - and improv comedy - it kind of takes away the steam of anything else that you did pre-fame. So no matter what I had done, I had done a lot of dramatic TV work before that, the fact of the matter is I’m ‘Wayne Brady’, the guy from Who’s Line and the guy from that talk show. I kind of have that battle to fight and win.”
Is there any room to improvise in drama?
“Why would I want to? That’s more of the question. If the script is written well, it would be a little bit presumptuous of me to go, ‘Well, because folks know me and I can do improv comedy, then I’m going to go ahead and improvise dialogue.’ So no, not really.
I think that there is a place for dramatic improvisation and I’ve seen it. But once again, when a script is good, why improvise around it? There’s a time and a place for each skill. Just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean do it. I mean, I can tap too and I wasn’t trying to find a place for Vaughn to break out his skills.”
Do you consider Vaughn a villain?
“Vaughn is not villainous; Vaughn is selfish. If any word could be applied in my opinion, it would be amoral to a degree. I think that by definition, it means having the capacity to do whatever you need to do to get the job done at the expense of someone else. Not necessarily because you bear that person any animus, but because you want to get it done. That’s what he wanted to get done. He wants to go back to the pros as a successful sports agent because he had to leave that world. He’s tired of making it as a big fish in a little pond in Detroit. He wants what he wants and tries to get it by any means necessary.”
Do you know any Vaughns?
“I know a bunch of Vaughns. I do live in Hollywood and there are a lot of people that fit the stereotype. But then you just take yourself out of that person’s path. Sometimes you’re forced to work with him and you just find out how to deal with the way they think.”
Are agents really like Vaughn?
“I can’t make the broad sweeping generalization like every agent is like Vaughn or like Ari from Entourage, but I think that there are a lot of producers and agents and actors in general that are like Vaughn because a lot of money is at stake in entertainment. Either you have none and you want it, or you have a ton of it and you want more and you’ll do anything for it.”
Did you sneak in any basketball between takes?
“Not particularly because a) I’m really not an incredible player. I’m a good player but I really was trying to be a little focused and stay in that character and try to do things that I think he would do. I definitely saw Vaughn as being a guy that wouldn’t dirty his hands playing ball. He would much prefer the head game of controlling the guys that played ball.”
How is your game?
“My game on a scale of one to 10 is about a five. Good enough to be a team player. I should never be the star and I get nervous. As soon as the ball’s passed to me, I get really nervous and I have to get rid of it because you have that fear of if I take the shot and if I miss, people are going to laugh at me. And if I take the shot and I make it, then that would be great, but I don’t want to take that risk because I’ve missed more than I’ve made it. I pretty much know my own strengths.”
