Interview
with Eddie Griffin
At the Essex Hotel in
Manhattan’s Central Park South, on one of the earliest spring
days of the year, I had the chance to sit down with the star of
the upcoming and hysterical Dysfunktional Family, Eddie Griffin.
The interview was great. He’s not one that you need to pry
answers from, thank God. He was very friendly, very open and very
down to Earth. In short he’s what I expected, a cool cat.
Below is the conversation he had with me as well as several other
journalists who happened to share him with me.
 How
is it to see yourself on screen? It must be like a dream come
true.
Eddie Griffin:
It is a dream come true. It’s one of those reactions like:
I did that. But it don’t look like you when you watch it.
Is it weird to see
your family and everyone up there?
Eddie Griffin:
No. My family I’m used to seeing but myself… it don’t
look like you. It’s like watching some dude doing standup.
Do you pick yourself
apart? “Oh I should’ve done this or that.”
Eddie Griffin:
Yeah I’m my own worst critic.
What did your family
ask for in terms of perks? Did they want big bucks, trailers?
Do they have movie star demands?
Eddie Griffin:
No. Family is love. They’re not coming at it like “Hit
me off with five hundred thousand”
My family might do
that
Eddie Griffin:
Sorry to hear that [Laughter] No. my family is an open book as
you can see from the film. They don’t hide. They’re
proud to let the world know.
Did you have to ask
their permission?
Eddie Griffin:
[Shakes his head and laughs] We just showed up at the house. We
showed up with the cameras and said we just want to sit down for
a while and film you for Eddie’s movie. “Cool”
[And he [Uncle Curtis] said] let me show you some movies. Well
that’s Curtis. If any of y’all show up at the house
he’s gonna show you some shit. [Laughter] “Have you
seen this one? Here let me show it to you.”
You think he’ll
go and get an agent now? People will be going to him for it.
Eddie Griffin:
I think he’s gonna blow up. Yeah. You’ll be seeing
Curtis on HBO probably with his own series. Like Siskel &
Ebert. They’ll have Uncle Curtis critic on the new porno’s
that come out. He’ll give it two balls up, one dick down.
[Laughter] Something like that.
What about you’re
other uncle who’s done heroine and stuff. He looked like
when you put the camera on him, he looked a little uncomfortable
even though he was laughing. Did you talk to him beforehand about
it?
Eddie Griffin:
I think you’re making it more difficult than it was. We
were in Kansas City for a week and they just followed me around
with a camera for 24 hours a day and we bumped into all my family
members out there. The main ones I wanted to talk to was Bucky,
Curtis and my moms ‘cause that’s the piece that I
was doing on the set. The three of them are just open. You know.
So, Bucky nervous? Hell no. [Laughter] Bucky’s just laid
back like that. [He then goes into an impersonation of Uncle Bucky.
More laughter.]
Was your mom really
happy to be in it?
Eddie Griffin:
Moms had two white Zinfandel’s and I knew she was just gonna
floor’em.
 Was
there ever a point when you started doing stand up that any of
your family said “You can’t talk about me like that”?
Eddie Griffin:
I’m not talking about them I’m just telling the truth,
shit. No we don’t have any issues. They come see the show
and they like “Don’t leave out the part on when I…”
You know. It’s more like they’ll add to the story
then detract it.
You do one heck of
a Sammy Davis Jr. imitation. Is it true they asked you to do the
movie?
Eddie Griffin:
Yes this is true. It’s started up with Miramax.
How long until they
start it?
Eddie Griffin:
It’ll take me a year to get ready to play Sammy ‘cause
Sammy did everything but fly. [Laughter]
What are you doing
to prepare?
Eddie Griffin:
Oh you know, we gotta brush up on tapping ‘cause I ain’t
tapped dance in at least nine years. I gotta learn how to play
the drums, bass ‘cause he played every instrument. So there’s
a lot of work going into that.
You have to do your
own singing then?
Eddie Griffin:
Yes. I have my own band.
Is there a reason
the story has to be told?
Eddie Griffin:
[Here Eddie shifts gears and enters into his best Sammy D. Jr.
impression. He makes it seem so easy.] Why not man? That’s
an interesting question and I’d like to pose an answer if
I may. The reason the story has to be told is because that was
the cat that knocked down the doors man. If there wasn’t
a Sammy there’d be no Michael Jackson, there would be no
Puffy Combs so the story has to be told man.
Was it worked at
all?
Eddie Griffin:
No. I wanted to tell the real story, know what I mean? ‘Cause
a lot of that story hasn’t been told. He had a lot of turbulence.
He had it rough. Imagine being in the army and then a group of
guys piss on you. There’s a lot of stuff that hasn’t
been told. The rat pack didn’t service his life at all.
 What
surprised you most about him? What did you learn?
Eddie Griffin:
I didn’t know his dick was that big. [Laughter. This time
we laughed for a while.]
Are you just joshing
us or was he notorious for having a big…
Eddie Griffin:
He had a reputation for being a swordsman. Yeah, he was a knight
of the round table.
Who’s playing
the rest of the rat pack? Do you know?
Eddie Griffin:
I know I want Harry Conick Jr. to play Frank Sinatra. The rest
of the rat pack I’m not really concerned with ‘cause
in the Sammy story, it’s really a story about two friends
which is him and Frank Sinatra where it wasn’t cool for
a white man to have a black friend they were just blood brothers.
When Sammy got in trouble, Frank was always there, when he got
in trouble with the IRS, Frank was there to bail him out. So I
want to follow that friendship and how they could go through the
60’s and 50’s. There was a time when Sammy was first
performing in Vegas and they wouldn’t let him come through
the front door. They told him to go around back and he’s
on the fucking bill. And Frank Sinatra went up to the casino owner
and said "if he don’t walk through the
front door I don’t perform here." That
was the first time a black entertainer was allowed to walk through
the front door.
What place was it
in Vegas?
Eddie Griffin:
I forgot. I don’t want to say the wrong casino. One of them
is blown up now. They’re no longer casinos now, they’re
family traps.
Now that you started
dancing, have you been thinking about doing musicals?
Eddie Griffin:
Yes I want to do a musical. Most definitely. I think the musical
is back. Chicago is proof of that. And you know the war is getting
ready to come, musicals always do good during wars. [Laughter]
The war seems to be heavily on your mind as we can tell from last
night. [Eddie Griffin performed at a comedy club for press only
the previous night] Shit,
shouldn’t it be on everyone’s mind? Like I said if
George Bush has to walk over there himself he’s gonna start
a war. The boy’s stuck on stupid. He got one brain cell
and it’s stuck on stupid.
What do you think
is your role as a comedian to even bring a political thought to
the audience?
Eddie Griffin:
None.
But you do it anyway.
Eddie Griffin:
That’s just me. But it’s not a prerequisite to being
a comedian. Some comedians don’t even like dealing with
those issues ‘cause it’s not in their makeup. Just
like my man said the war is heavy on my mind but it’s not
heavy on his. So if he were doing stand up you wouldn’t
here him talk about the war ‘cause he ain’t concerned
about it. So it just depends on the person. Me, I’m an avid
CNN watcher. C-SPAN all that shit, so when you bombard yourself
with all that shit 24 hours a day as I do, for some strange reason,
you jump on stage and that tends to spew out.
 Did
you hear from Michael Jackson? That was such a funny scene in
the movie. Do you think you’ll hear from him?
Eddie Griffin:
Who? Michael? I don’t know, I think Mike has a sense of
humor. He has to. Shit, look at his face. [Laughter]
Have you actually
met him?
Eddie Griffin:
No
He was an idol of
yours at one point.
Eddie Griffin:
Yeah. Still is. He’s one of the most talented motherfuckers
that ever walked on stage. Let’s not get it twisted. I respect
the shit outta him. Anybody that can grow up from age six in that
fucking business it’s like, when you look at him, you’re
looking at the business. He’s a product of the business.
He didn’t have a regular childhood. When we were outside
playing on the slide or the jungle gym, this dude’s rehearsing
backstage watching the temptations snort cocaine. He’s seen
a lot.
Do you have a favorite
comedy show or comedy performance? Not of yours, of another comedians?
Eddie Griffin:
Richard Prior live. The Long Beach show. That’s the apex,
that’s the pinnacle. That’s what everybody’s
trying to reach for. When he walked on that stage he had the red
shirt on in Long Beach and when he walked on that stage to the
time he left, he was on fire. I think we captured that in Dysfunktional
‘cause that was one of those magical nights that we shot
in Chicago and I knew from the time I walked out “I’m
ON tonight” and we had it on film. Usually when we have
those shows you say “damn I wish we’d
filmed that”.
Whose idea was it
to edit the film so that it goes back and forth between your family
and your act? Visually that was one of the best parts.
Eddie Griffin:
That was all me. That was from the outset. When I walked into
David’s office and told him about the concept.. ‘Cause
I’ve been doing the material out on the road and people
would always walk up to me and say “You’re moms really
tried to run you over with the car? You really got an Uncle Bucky?”
So I said if I do the concept then I gotta show them otherwise
I’ll get the same effect. So I had to show the people so
they can say, “OK he really ain’t making this shit
up.” So yeah that was from the concept, from the inception
as it were.
Any other performers
along the lines of Sammy Davis that have really opened the doors
for black entertainers that you admire?
Eddie Griffin:
Oh yeah, Richard Prior. You know, if James Brown is the godfather
of soul then Richard Prior is the godfather of comedy, period.
That man knocked down all those last freedom of speech doors.
Lenny Bruce started it knocking on the door. When it was that
conservative, when it was Leave It To Beaver land, a motherfucker
couldn’t say “motherfukcer” on stage without
going to jail. And this is America, to actually think that in
the 60’s Lenny Bruce got locked up in fucking jail for saying
“fucking”. We’ve come a long way from having
verbal freedom.
Is there anything
you can tell us about Scary Movie 3?
Eddie Griffin:
Yes, I’m doing Scary Movie 3. I’m doing the Morpheus
character.
Morpheus? [Laughter.
C’mon, it’s funny just thinking about it]
Eddie Griffin:
Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. We’ll film that in
June.
Any other projects
you’re working on?
Eddie Griffin:
Enter The Hood a set up over at Miramax. It’s a comedy that
I wrote. Remember Enter The Dragon with Bruce Lee? We have Enter
The Hood and Mr. Handman has fuck you fingers that he puts on,
fingers that have roach clips for his joints, feathers that he
spanks his bitch’s ass with. I play the Bruce Lee character.
But everybody that was Asian in Enter The Dragon is black with
the little Asian wigs on and the one black character is Asian
with an Afro. It’s all gonna be sub titled. The only motherfucker
that speaks English is the Asian dude but he sounds like he’s
from the hood.
When will you start
filming that?
Eddie Griffin:
That’s gonna be in November.
Will you be doing
all your own stunts?
Eddie Griffin:
Oh yeah. I just finished a movie doing all my own stunts. It’s
called Blast and it was shot in South Africa. It’s an action
film. It’s me, Vinny Jones, Vivica Fox. It’s written
by Steve, the guy that wrote Die Hard for Bruce Willis and it’s
basically Die Hard on an oil rig. I play this tugboat captain
who’s positioning this oilrig off the coast of California.
Vinny Jones is this environmentalist whose protesting this oil
rig and oil company, blah blah blah So he ends up getting on this
oil rig and we find out he’s a terrorist and he’s
taken over this whole damn oil rig and my godson is trapped on
this oil rig with him ‘cause we were gonna do a surprise
Christmas party. It takes place around Christmas. I think it comes
out this fall before Christmas. So it’s just an everyday
Joe put in this extreme situation. You know, would he rise to
the occasion. It’s basically what Bruce Willis had to do
in Die Hard.
Is it tougher doing
action or drama than comedy?
Eddie Griffin:
Oh no, I took to action like a fish takes to water. Yeah, I like
it. I did every stunt. The stand-in that they had for me was 40
lbs heavier than me so it didn’t make any sense. I’m
running and fat man jumping. [Hard laughter] So after looking
at his ass I’m like “I got it. I’ll do it myself”.
Thank God I was in South Africa ‘cause half the stunts I
did they wouldn’t allow you to do here in the States.
So what’s hard
for you? It seems that everything comes naturally.
Eddie Griffin:
They’re all hard but I think if you love what you’re
doing you don’t think about the difficulty of it. Getting
on stage doing standup anytime is hard. You never know what you’re
going to say. You live and die on your next word. It’s the
most dangerous form of entertainment, which is why I get an adrenaline
rush off it, a natural high off it ‘cause you never know.
So it’s like Russian roulette the whole fucking time. It’s
difficult but when you love what you’re doing, you don’t
look at it for difficulty reasons. You just like “This is
me. This is what the fuck I do.” But if I actually sat back
and thought about it, shit, I couldn’t do it. So just do
it. The Nike slogan: just do it.
I thank Mr. Griffin for the time
he spent with us. As you can see from the interview he had us
dying half the time. He’s a naturally funny man with a great
sense of humor. You should really do yourselves a favor and, if
you can get past the profanity, go check out Dysfunktional Family
this weekend. It’s hysterical.
DysFunktional Family Opens
April 4
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