Terry Crews may be the most underrated comedic actor of the last forty years. That's something of an arbitrary number, because I don't feel like sitting here and putting together any kind of accurate timeline where I can say, "oh, well, in 1967 there was a little known comic by the name of Sonny Jim who, despite countless years and miles logged touring the comedy circuit never got the recognition he deserved." I like the way "in the last forty years" sounds, so I'm going to go with that.
As I was saying, Terry Crews: he's never had a starring role, and beyond that he's pretty one dimensional. He's pretty much always cast as the "big scary black guy who _____" in any given movie. And to be fair, while Terry might have the range of a younger, buffer, blacker, Hoffman, the casting industry is a pretty raw job where you're constantly trying to weave between a million shitty actors and thousands of stressed out AD's who just want the role filled and don't have time to sit around watching the larval actors try to emerge from the cocoon of typecasting as a versatile butterfly of a thousand faces. Basically you need to get an actor, any actor, into the part so you can move on to the next one.
I hope everyone enjoyed that butterfly metaphor, because it took me a solid thirty seconds to remember the word "larval", and being that time is money, that shit wasn't free. Though in the interest of full disclosure, I'm writing this on a northbound train around noon and working my way through another tallboy, so my time isn't exactly priceless at the moment.
At some point I'm going to follow this blithering back to Terry Crews, but thinking about casting agents reminded me of when casting sent over a few dozen actresses to audition for the role of "Hooker #1" for a pilot that was shooting out of the production office for the other TV show I work on. Normally when we have auditions in the office it blows for me because I have to take time out of my busy schedule of trying to find punker videos on YouTube to direct a bunch of dumbass actors to the bathroom, kitchen, etc etc. But THIS day was awesome because the office was full of a ton of struggling lady actors, or "actresses" for the feminists out there, who came it dressed up like hookers. Which, to my mind, is even better than an office full of actual hookers, because this way I don't have to watch my wallet every thirty seconds, or get fired for ALLEGEDLY making time in the bathroom with said hookers.
But moving on, it's not to say that I, or anyone else for that matter, doesn't believe Terry is capable of a career turning performance as a "big scary black guy who's also a lovable retarded guy" ala Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile. He just hasn't gotten that break yet. But honestly, you know what? Good for him. In a way I find it really obnoxious when actors bitch about getting typecast into a certain role, and complain about not being able to fully explore their potential or whatever other horseshit they're lead to believe they have by softhanded agents. Yeah, you have to go to work for twenty years and play variations on the same part over and over and over again, but that beats the shit out of going to work for thirty years doing LITERALLY the same thing every day, especially when that same thing is something that you hate and get paid jack shit to do, like most of the rest of the world.
I don't mean to say I begrudge actors who are able to break out of a certain role, and who are able to land all sorts of new and exciting parts. Good for them, if that helps make them happier, that rules. But there are worse things in the world than playing "farty guy" in National Lampoon straight to DVD movies for the rest of your life.
And this is where it finally gets back to Terry Crews. He's basically the same guy in every movie, but he has absolutely PERFECTED that role. The pinnacle of his acting achievements is White Girls. The Wayans Brothers written/directed/produced film features Crews at his absolute best. Were I to put together a comedy time capsule for the ages, it would have to include two scenes from White Girls. The first being when he sings Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" and the second being when he's on ecstasy at the dance club and is rave dancing shirtless with glowsticks and a whistle. Fuck. I defy you to watch either of those scenes without dying. And if you don't, you're a shitty asshole with a shitty asshole sense of humor.
When it comes down to it I have unending respect and admiration for Crews and the fact that he has no bullshit actor-y delusions of grandeur. When it comes down to it, he knows that he's a big scary buff black dude who has GREAT comedic timing, and if he takes his shirt off and raves out with a whistle and it makes the people laugh, that's all there is to it. It's all summed up in a bit from Raw, substituting "them", being smarmy pretentious jerkoffs everywhere, for "Bill" in the original bit.
"Do the people laugh when you [do] that shit? " "Yeah." "The tell [them] I said have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up."
And the two clips from White Chicks that I mentioned earlier are below. The second, the one at the club, is funnier in context, but it's still pretty hilarious even if you haven't seen the movie.
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