About the Production
The idea for “Dance Flick” came from a combination of suggestions from the younger Damien Dante and Craig Wayans and their uncle, Shawn, the latter often credited with starting new Wayans concepts. “Shawn is like a start-up engine,” says his brother Marlon. “When it comes to coming up with ideas, he’s like an idiot savant. Mostly idiot,” he laughs teasingly.
Ideas for Wayans projects come from the strangest places and at the strangest times, Marlon says. “Shawn will call me up at some weird hour in the morning with an idea, and I’ll just go, ‘Oh, that’s funny,’ we’ll start building from there.”
So why a send-up of dance movies? “We had just come off a stream of really good dance movies, like ‘You Got Served,’ ‘Step Up’ and “Stomp the Yard,’” says producer Rick Alvarez, a longtime partner of the Wayans brothers. “But they were all starting to tell the same stories. They were all doing the same kinds of dances and everything started to feel the same. We just knew it was time.”
“Dance movies are incredible,” says comic actor Affion Crockett, who plays A-Con, an aspiring convict, in the film. “But the acting is usually atrocious, and there’s no story line. It’s like you find a couple of kids that are down and out and have no direction, and all of a sudden dancing saves their lives.”
It was not only the preponderance of dance movies in movie theaters, but also on TV shows like “Dancing with the Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance” that inspired the Wayans to action. “‘Dancing with the Stars’ has all these B movie stars and singers,” notes Damon Jr. “I mean, Heather Mills – everybody wanted that leg to fly off. I was watching, just hoping, ‘Come on, just once, just let it slide on the floor and turn it into a dance move.’” He adds, simply, “There’s been so much dance involved in our culture lately that somebody needed to make fun of it.”
Send-ups are, it seems, a way of life for the Wayans. “They notice trends and things that have passed their prime, that are at a place where they have almost become parodies of themselves,” says Alvarez. Damon agrees. “They just see a trend and then act accordingly – ‘Somebody should make fun of that.’”
Adds Crockett, “The Wayans have a way of taking movies that you would have seen in the theater, ones where you might have watched a scene and said to yourself, ‘Wow, that was corny – but what if this would have happened? That would have made it funnier.’ They have a way of tapping into that and translating it to the screen and bringing the jokes forward.”
Once a project is underway, team Wayans gets to work, starting with selecting the movies to send-up, classics like “Flashdance” and “Fame,” as well as most of the recent crop, including “Save the Last Dance” and “High School Musical.”
“We look for the best story that will fit the genre,” explains Craig. “A lot of other parodies, they just take whatever the biggest movies were, period, and throw them in and say it’s genre when it’s not. We pretty much just load up on the genre and go for it and have fun.”
As one might expect, a gathering of Wayans all watching movies and looking for moments to take-off on isn’t an event anyone would want to miss. “It’s like going to a movie with a bunch of teenagers,” describes Craig, “and a bunch of Monster energy drinks and candy, and you hear people talking in the background and making fun of what’s on the screen.”
The environment is a far cry from the standard writer’s room. “I’ve seen other writer’s rooms and they’re boring,” he adds. “With us, it really doesn’t seem like work. I’m with my family, my best friends, and all we do is laugh, crack jokes and put it on paper.”
The crew gathered at Keenen’s or Shawn’s house, or wherever was convenient, to review potential parodies. “If somebody had a stand-up gig, we’d go on the road and, before and after, we’d just write,” Craig continues. “We’d hang out with each other all the time, so even if we were going somewhere to have fun, we could work until it was time for fun and then work afterwards. You come up with your best stuff that way.”
Joke suggestion periods weren’t necessarily limited to daytime. “We’d get a lot of calls at 3 o’clock in the morning,” Craig says. “It’ll be 3 a.m. and Shawn will call, going, ‘Oh, man, I was just doing such-and-such and this happened.
Wouldn’t that be funny in the movie?’ I’m, like, ‘Hey, this couldn’t wait until tomorrow? Ever heard of a pad and pen?’” But that door swung both ways, Craig confesses. “And sometimes, you’d call somebody at four in the morning and say something funny, and they’re like, ‘Hey, man that wasn’t that funny. Go back to sleep. Don’t call with this nonsense.’”
Compilations of great gags are nothing new to the Wayans, whose work is rooted in gag-after-gag sketch comedy. “To them (the Wayans family),” notes choreographer Dave Scott, “doing a send-up gives them an opportunity to go to more places in one project, without having to be locked into just one genre. They can add in a send-up of ‘Crash’ or ‘Black Snake Moan.’ It gives them an opportunity to be even more insane in one project because they’re not locked down to making fun of just one thing.”
“A theater with a laughing audience is all we want,” Marlon continues. “If we can get the people we’re making fun of to laugh, we know we did a good job. We don’t want to see anybody cry. We just want to see people crying from laughter.”
Casting Characters
For the cast of “Dance Flick,” the producers decided to stay away from known names, keeping the joke telling at the center. “Casting the movie was a real challenge for us,” says producer Alvarez. “We were hoping to find really funny people who could dance. We focused heavily on the funny and just kept our fingers crossed that they could dance, too.”
“Finding new young actors who could make an audience laugh at any cost, was the primary objective,” notes Alvarez. “There’s no vanity in comedy. One of the great things about working with young actors is that they’re not afraid to get out there and get their hands dirty.”
“I didn’t want to go the name route. I really wanted to come out with some fresh new energy,” says Damien Dante, the film’s director. “I’m a first-timer and people believed in me, so I believed in giving back to others.” First and foremost was Damon Wayans, Jr. as Thomas Uncles, whom Damon describes as “the nerdiest black dude you could ever imagine.”
Originally, Damon wasn’t even considering acting in the film at all. “I wasn’t even supposed to have a part in the movie. I was just writing jokes for it and I wound up auditioning. They asked me – I think they were just being nice,” he laughs.
“However, getting a part in a Wayans film isn’t a given, even if Wayans is your last name,” he notes. “They made me audition five times! I was, like, ‘Where’s the nepotism? Come on, kick in!’”
The son of Marlon’s brother, Damon, is often called “Damon D Rock,” “Little D,” “D June” – “Everything but my real name,” he notes. “Anything to make fun of anything, they come up with.” (Most of the cast referred to him simply as “Junior,” he mentions).
“He hates it when people say it, but he looks and sounds just like big Damon,” says co-star Affion Crockett. “He has a little touch of Marlon, a touch of Jim Carrey – he has the whole ‘In Living Color’ squad inside him. He’s like this cartoon baby that came out of Damon Wayans’ loins. He’s hilarious.” He didn’t get the role right away, though. “It was weird,” Damon recalls. “I’d do an audition and then go have a family dinner right after that, and they’re like, ‘You’re really close, man. Pass the salt.’”
“The odds were stacked against him,” says director Damien. “But Little Damon came in and put his foot in this role. He’s funny, he’s organic and he’s relentless. You can look to the kid for a joke a minute – boom, boom, boom. And he has that charm on screen, too.”
To develop his character, Damon harkened back to his youth. “I just thought of me before I ever got any, you know, when you think you’re so cool, like when I was 13. I backtracked and watched a lot of Sean Patrick Thomas movies.”
For his co-star, the producers cast actress Shoshana Bush, who plays Megan White, a take-off on the Julia Stiles character in “Save the Last Dance.” “She’s sort of the girl-next-door type, naïve to everything that’s going on around her, but she’s also becoming a woman as she’s learning the dance moves,” Bush says. “‘Save the Last Dance’ was one of my favorite movies growing up, so I’m just thrilled to be able to send-up that character in my own way.” “Shoshana truly does have a girl-next-door quality,” notes Damien.
“Plus, she’s a beautiful girl, stunning and just plain funny. She reminds me of a young Lucille Ball. I don’t think she truly knows how funny she is. We put that girl through the ups and downs of movie making and she totally stepped up to the plate.”
Part of those ups and downs, besides an immense amount of dancing, included an oil wrestling scene with her nemesis Nora (played by Christina Murphy). “Christina and I kept bouncing ideas off each other on how to bitch people out,” Bush recalls. “We’re enemies in the movie, but we had so much fun. As Keenen says, ‘there’s no vanity in comedy. If you look stupid doin’ this, it’s funny, so just go for it.’”
Murphy’s Nora parodies both Jenna Dewan’s character from “Step Up” and the “mean girl” character in “Save the Last Dance.” “We put them together, and I’m the mean best dancer of the school who falls in love with the janitor,” Murphy explains. “I’m not nice to anyone until we get into battle and I find some camaraderie, and finally some friends, and a little bit of love.”
Of Christina’s performance, Rick Alvarez says, “What we really liked about Christina is that she’s fearless. The girl comes in, she will say anything and do anything. I mean, she even shocked the Wayans and if you can shock the Wayans, you know you’re doing something special.”
Megan’s best pal in the movie is Charity, a teenage mom with questionable mothering skills, a girl not averse to tucking her baby away in her school locker to avoid any distractions. “She’s always focused on the baby’s well-being, but there’s still a life to be lived,” notes Essence Atkins, who plays Charity. “There’s still clubs to go to, there’s still moments to have and men to find to be her boyfriend.”
Sending-up the Chenille Reynolds character in “Save the Last Dance,” Atkins made sure to get to know Charity well before stepping in front of the cameras, going as far as creating a bio for her, deciding her favorite colors and even what she carries in her purse. “Real humor comes from truth, so I really wanted to find the truth of Charity. From there, you can build and make things funny.”
Charity’s baby, for the most part, was played by a set of twins and another child, but for its numerous acrobatic scenes an animatronic version was used, affectionately referred to by the cast and crew as “Igor.” “Poor Igor,” Atkins says.
“He really got abused in this film. I don’t know that he’ll ever be the same.” A nod to the popular “High School Musical” comes in the form of Jack, a take-off on Zac Efron’s teen heartthrob character, Troy. Says the talented Brennan Hillard, who plays the boy, “I do a kind of gay version of Troy.”
To study for the role, Hillard watched every piece of footage of Troy he could find to pick up his mannerisms and his speech. “I watched ‘High School Musical,’ like, every day. I watched awards shows to see the way he walked, the way he acted. I tried getting his little smile down, you know, the fake smile, and just ramped it up a bit.”
In the film, Jack is struggling with his sexuality, which finally bursts forth in a take-off on “Fame,” as well as an orientation-changing sports performance. (As co-star Christina Murphy notes, “Brennan brings a new meaning to basketball.”) “I love playing basketball,” notes director Damien Dante Wayans. “So I was trying to figure out how I could mix basketball with some funny. Brennan was just fabulous in that scene.”
The only one who doesn’t seem to get where his son’s headed is Zack’s dad, who’s also the school’s sports coach. “He’s the iconic blue collar dad who believes his son is a man’s man and nothing less,” Damien explains. “So the dynamics of the two were kind of like a ‘The Odd Couple’ father/son.”
The “Fame” send-up, says Rick Alvarez, was one of the most complicated sequences in the film, shot over several months’ time, including a shoot on Paramount’s historic New York Street backlot set. “That was a dream come true,” Hillard says of the experience. “The first job I did was at Raleigh Studios, across the street, when I was 13. I remember looking across the street then and seeing Paramount Studios, thinking, ‘I want to get there someday.’ So it was wonderful.”
There is someone who has a crush on Jack, though that person, like his father, hasn’t quite gotten the message. “She doesn’t really pick up social cues,” says Chelsea Makela, who plays the bubbly-but-oversized Tracy Transfat. “She thinks Jack’s flirting with her.”
The character, Makela notes, is a take on the Tracy Turnblatt character in “Hairspray.” “There’s a girl like her in every school – just overly perky, overly happy, like nobody can bring her down. She thinks she’s friends with everyone, like in everyone’s crowd, but they all just kind of wish she’d go away.” Playing such a warm person was not a far stretch for Makela. “Chelsea is just a joy to be around. She has this kind of natural joy that comes out of her,” says Rick Alvarez.
Christina Murphy agrees. “My character, Nora, is not supposed to really pay attention to her because she’s a little obsessed with Nora, but I couldn’t help, as a person, not wanting to smile at her. She is the cutest thing ever and she’s so sweet.”
The ever-funny Affion Crockett plays A-Con, who, Crockett says, “is a guy who is literally aspiring to be a convict. He loves negativity.”
His performance comes in an out-and-out Wayans homage. “I attended the Wayans school from afar,” the actor says. “It’s very rare that you get to work with the people who influenced you the most. I grew up watching ‘In Living Color’ and ‘I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.’ These were the guys I aspired to. Now it’s a whole family of them, so you can take your pick.”
“Affion’s somebody we’ve worked with in the past,” says Alvarez. “He’s just a really, really funny guy who also happens to come from the world of dance.” Adds director Damien, “He’s the guy who, whenever he stepped in front of the camera, you didn’t know what he was going to say, but you knew it was going to be funny.”
Ross Thomas plays Tyler, the school janitor for whom the ice cold Nora falls for and becomes his dance partner. “He’s the only one that could pick her up!” Murphy notes of Tyler.
“He’s sending-up the Channing Tatum character from the ‘Step Up’ movies,” says Thomas. “In ‘Step Up,’ Tyler is sentenced to community service at the school he vandalized. In ‘Dance Flick,’ Tyler is a janitor at Megan’s school.
Like some of the other cast, Thomas worked hard at doing his best to match the mannerisms and voice of the character that inspired his. “I wanted to highlight character qualities that stood out, particularly those I could make fun of that people will know are cliché Channing,” he says. “In ‘Step Up,’ he comes off as the brooding, ghetto white guy from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s a quiet, clean cut dude, but when you hear him talk, he’s got this ghetto twang, ‘wassup dog’…I thought it would be funny to try my imitation of his voice.’
Notes his co-star, Murphy, “He came every day and he was Channing Tatum. He did his research. He popped and locked all over the set and he was wonderful to dance with.”
Like the actors themselves, the kids in the film study dance, in this case from the school’s dance teacher, the harsh Ms. Cameltoe, who is known for her tight-fitting leotard. And by the way, there’s an accent over the “e.” It’s “Cameltois, she informs the students.
Ms. Cameltoe is played by Amy Sedaris. “We were big fans of hers from ‘Strangers with Candy’ and have always wanted to work with her,” Alvarez explains. “We were really lucky to get her. It’s a risky role that she jumped right into. She had no qualms about it.”
Rounding out the cast are two other comedic Wayans must-haves. Chris Elliott plays Megan’s dad, Ron, who lives in a run-down slum of an apartment with no toilet (okay, there’s a hole in the floor where it ought to be, which apparently is good enough). “It’s the best apartment on Craigslist,” chuckles Damien, adding, “. . . I wouldn’t live there.”
“We try to work with Chris whenever we can,” says Alvarez. “He plays this great, bad dad, but, you know, Chris is one of those guys who comes in and he’ll improv and come up with some of the funniest things in the movie.”
“Chris is just so damned funny. You can always count on him,” says Marlon. “He literally had us crying on the set.”
And what Wayans picture would be complete without David Alan Grier, who plays Sugar Bear, the loan shark/henchman/drug lord who certainly lives up to his name, with a diet consisting of pumpkin pie, Krispy Kreme donuts, Ho-Hos, Twinkies, et al. “We were dying laughing when we came up with that character,” says Craig Wayans. “There was a character in ‘You Got Served’ that was kind of a heavyset, shut-in character, and it was funny because he’s playing this intimidating character. He’s so big, how can he really physically threaten you? So we just did a take-off on him by making him even bigger.”
As for Grier, “He’s one of our go-to guys,” Alvarez says simply. “You know David’s going to be great. He’s kind of a Broadway talent who does comedy.” Adds Marlon, “He’s a guy that will always be in our camp and every movie we make.”
Working with Grier can be a problem though. “You have to master the art of not laughing when you’re doing a scene with him because he’s going to make you laugh,” explains Affion Crockett. “He’s insane with funny. He’s in this big fat suit, so to see him do the David Alan Grier faces, but with fat on them. It’s surreal.” Even Damon Jr. had difficulty completing scenes with Grier. “I’m glad most of the shots we did together were from the back of my head because I was always breaking character, like full-on laughter,” he recalls. “If you concentrate, if you look at the back of my neck, you might see the smile in the shot leaking through.”
Even though they don’t star in the film, the Wayans brothers themselves are scattered throughout, delivering some of the movie’s choicest laughs. Shawn plays Baby Daddy, the rarely-present father of Charity’s baby. “Baby Daddy is the worst father in the world, but he thinks he’s the best,” explains Alvarez. “At least Charity is there every day,” notes Essence Atkins.
“She might be missing for several hours, but she’s there.” Baby Daddy gives new meaning to the expression “pick up the baby!” Though he’s rarely onscreen, Shawn delivers some guffaws. “The scenes with Baby Daddy are some of the funniest scenes in the movie,” says Damien.
“Shawn came in and did a couple of scenes, and every time he comes onscreen, it’s something different, but something brilliant always comes out of his mouth.” Marlon portrays Mr. Moody, the school’s deranged acting coach. “If you go down anywhere on Hollywood Boulevard you can find one of these coaches who used to be a day player on ‘T.J. Hooker’ and now think that qualifies them to teach acting,” explains Affion Crockett.
“We’ve all had him,” says Damon Jr. “If you’ve gone to performing arts school, you know exactly who Mr. Moody is as soon as you see Mr. Moody.” One thing Mr. Moody will never argue with, though, is a paycheck. “He always talks about integrity you must have as an actor, but when integrity meets hunger, one must take the check because humility has no place in your stomach,” says Damon Jr. He’s a guy who talks about not doing this, not doing that, and then he does the most degrading roles ever, like slave roles, junkies and prostitutes. That’s probably Mr. Moody’s whole catalogue right there.”
Starring in “classics” like “Cotton Pickin’ Pickinnies,” which Rick Alvarez describes as “the most racist movie in history,” he says, “We knew we were walking the edge with that, but Marlon put on the bald makeup and made himself look like he was a 50-something washed up B-movie actor who comes in to teach what he can’t do. He was hilarious.”
One thing Marlon didn’t do was save film. “He would use up all the film we had and then wanted to start over,” Alvarez notes. “He only worked a couple of days on the movie, but you would think he was there for weeks.”
“We ran through 25,000 feet of film in one day,” Marlon says. The problem was the comic had just been filming “G.I. Joe,” and, frankly, the funny in him needed to come out and in a big way. “‘G.I. Joe’ is an action/adventure, and I was starving for comedy. So when I came on set, I was just, like, ‘Another take – I must do it again, again, again.’ Poor Damien.” The directing nephew fully understood, though. “When he came here, it was like he just let out all his funny juice,” Damien says. “He didn’t care how much film he used up, he didn’t care how long he took to get to the set, but when he got there, he was hilarious and funny.”
Mr. Moody’s classroom scene was one Marlon’s young co-stars will never forget. “It was my first day on set,” recalls Brennan Hillard. “We shot from about two in the afternoon all the way to 3:30 in the morning. He just kept pulling out things and doing improv and it was such a funny scene. Every time he did it I just wanted to crack up in my chair.” “It was one of the most hilarious experiences I’ve ever had as an actor,” says Ross Thomas. “We could not lock it up. I mean, we had to bite our lips. He was so funny.” Adds Christina Murphy, “Even when the camera wasn’t on him and we just needed him for his voice, he would peel his face off and he would do all these things to try to get us to crack up. Then we’d get in trouble for cracking up and, of course, it was Marlon’s fault.”
Damon Jr. had the same problem with his uncle Keenen, who plays Mr. Stache, a take-off on the Steve Harvey character in “You Got Served.” “It was so hard for me to stay straight without breaking because he kept bringing new jokes in, so I would never get used to the joke,” he says. Same for Affion Crockett. “I’m in the scene with him, and I’m trying not to laugh. On one hand, it’s Keenen Ivory Wayans, so the fan in me is trying not to break and be in awe. I have to remain in character as A-Con and not be Affion, but it was hysterical.”
A few other members of the Wayans clan made it into the group as well. Writer/executive producer Craig plays Truck, one of the rival 409 dance crew members. “It’s a send-up of Tank from the 410 Crew in ‘Step Up 2,’” he explains. “Truck is always angry for no reason. Very intense.”
Craig’s Aunt Kim plays Mrs. Dontwanttobebothered, the school counselor who truly doesn’t want to be bothered with the kids. “She’s been spending a lot of time writing and doing other things, so we were very fortunate to get her,” says Alvarez. Damon Jr.’s brother, Michael, plays a rapper outside the school who ends up ratting on himself and getting arrested. “Rappers always say so much stuff in their rhymes, they actually tell on themselves,” explains Craig.
Bringing Comedy to the Dance
When casting, the producers sought funny people who could dance, though not all were prepared for the kind of dancing the movie would feature. “Half of these people had never done anything like this,” says Rick Alvarez. “In fact, none of them had done anything like this in a movie.” Noted choreographer Dave Scott was brought onboard to get the cast in shape and devise the dance routines, an interesting choice since some of the movies being sent-up in “Dance Flick,” such as “Step Up 2,” “Stomp the Yard” and “You Got Served,” are movies Scott choreographed.
“It was kind of a double challenge for a choreographer, because not only are you choreographing scenes, but they have to do take-off on what you’ve done, as well as the work of other choreographers,” Scott explains. “It’s actually quite a compliment for Scott,” notes Shoshana Bush, “because he did such a good job on his movies, and we’re commenting on his good job. And now he gets to send-up the routines he created.” Doing a take-off of dance moves is not as simple as it might sound.
“When I got on the project,” says Scott, “I thought it was going to be, like, clowning the dancing, making fun of it – you know, horrible dancing, but it’s good dancing, with comedy thrown into it.”
“It was really important for the movie to have good dances and great dance movements,” Marlon Wayans says. “The dance in most of these movies that we’re sending-up is really good.” Adds Rick Alvarez, “That’s the difference between this movie just being a comedy and being a take-off of dance movies.”
The trick was how to make good dance funny. Scott watched all the original films, including his own, looking for places to inject the trademark Wayans humor. “Dave gave us a lot of insight into those movies and helped us find the punch lines,” says Alvarez. “He really set the tone for those scenes.”
“The great thing about Dave is that he’s very collaborative,” Damien says. “And he gets the joke. He gets the funny. He’s not one of those guys who’s making his own individual movie. He understands the joke. It’s one thing to do some really cool moves, but he was able to infuse comedy within the dance moves.”
Scott also credits his director with having a better-than-average understanding of dance. “Damien’s not a dancer, but he’s a huge fan of dance, so he has a lot to bring to the table that you wouldn’t, at first, expect,” he notes.
“He’ll go, ‘I want it to look like this, I want the feel of this film. I want the feel of that film.’ You can tell his knowledge isn’t just coming from the research he’s done. It’s because he has these different movies in his library already because he watches them. He’s an avid watcher of ‘So You Think You Can Dance,’ so he really likes different dance styles. My job, then, is to interpret what he wants from the dancers.”
The Wayans and Scott worked together to create the humor in the choreography. “They gave me all the parodies for the different movies to work on. I just did my research and they put the comic beats in,” he explains. “It was a great education for me because I know choreography, but they showed me how to put the comic beats into the dancing. It’s interesting, because what you think may be funny is funnier for a longer period of time depending on where the comic beat is in the routine. And that’s what they know best.”
The next challenge was to teach the actors how to do those funny moves, particularly since most didn’t have professional dance backgrounds. “In the casting process, a lot of the actors said they had dancing experience,” he laughs. “They lied.”
Brennan Hillard had some education and had taken a master class with Scott. Essence Atkins had some experience from previous work, but for the most part, the cast’s experience level was minimal.
“At my audition, Damien asked me, ‘Can you dance?’” recalls Chelsea Makela. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’m not going to lose this part because I said I couldn’t dance.’ So I answered him, ‘Of course I can dance!’”
Ross Thomas found himself unexpectedly surprised upon arrival at his audition. “I saw all these guys in the audition waiting room at Paramount with chains on, going, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m Sinner 5, I’m D Boy 6’ – they all had these dance names. And I’m like, ‘Well, I’m Ross Thomas, and I gotta go in there in front of the Wayans and make a fool of myself right now.’”
“He wasn’t the best dancer we auditioned, but he was the funniest actor,” says Rick Alvarez. “So we brought him in, and he invested 120% in the dance sequences and it shows in the film.”
“Ross is a guy who probably has like 20 friends and they all told him that he’s dope. And then he walked outside,” says Scott. “But what Ross lacks in dance skills, he more than makes up for with his energy.”
“Damon could actually dance a little bit,” says Scott, “but he felt like he couldn’t, so he kind of made little noises when he was doing a move to accommodate what he thought he wasn’t doing right.”
Like any Wayans, he proved to be a quick study and an equally-quick improviser. “If you’d let him go and said, ‘Follow me,’ he’d do it his way. And what he thought was horrible actually looked good, and it worked for him because he’s funny. It was different, but it was funny. He could just mock me, follow me, and do what he thought I looked like and that’s where the comedy came in.”
To get the actors up to speed, Scott and his assistant, Kristi Crader, put them through a week or two of intensive “Millennium Class” boot camp. “We had two weeks of pre-production, and we danced our tushies off,” recalls Shoshana Bush. “He worked us hard. We actually had to change a lot of it last minute and he kept his cool. He just came in and worked his magic.” “We kept calling him ‘Dancing Jesus,’ because he does miracles,” Damon Jr. says of his teacher. “He made people who suck at dancing look like they can actually dance.”
Keeping The Brothers Laughing
Working with the Wayans family is like a comic’s paradise. The combination of backgrounds in outlandish humor, sketch comedy, improv and some good old fashioned bad taste make for a film set like no other. “I was like, ‘You mean, I get to come to work every day and have fun? This is a dream,’” recalls Shoshana Bush.
“I just kept coming every day hoping that we’d have to shoot more things,” adds Christina Murphy. “I remember one day I wasn’t getting any laughs, and it was because we were all laughed out. I mean, you come to the set, and it’s so hard to keep a straight face. They kept telling me, ‘Lock it up, lock it up, Murphy.’ It was just too much fun there. I actually asked them to tell me they’d fire me if I didn’t lock it up, just so we could get a scene done.”
The cast also found that their contributions and suggestions were always welcome. “It was an awesome experience,” says Essence Atkins. “It’s fun to come to work and know that you can just be creative, and you can be free, and you can improve and bring suggestions.” Director Damien Dante Wayans not only permitted such suggestions but encouraged them. “He was always great, in terms of filtering and taking in what we thought would work, but also encouraging us to be outrageous, to go the extra mile for the comedy, as long as we maintained the story he wanted to tell,” she says.
“They really wanted to help you find that laugh in your character,” adds Chelsea Makela. “When you’re working on a character that has no boundaries,” notes Brennan Hillard, “it’s great, because I could do whatever I wanted and they trusted me to do whatever I thought would bring out the joke.”
“I’d always do two takes for Damien and then I could do one take for me,” notes Damon Jr. Damien himself also found the family atmosphere supportive for his first time directing a feature film. “I couldn’t have asked God for anything better,” he says. “I had around me some of the funniest minds in the world, some of the sweetest individuals in the world. They’re caretakers, they’re there for me when I need to pick up that phone – ‘Hey, uncle, where should I go with this scene?’”
Years of watching the previous generation at work proved invaluable for Damien. “It’s not only what they’ve instilled in me, but I’ve been able to watch them do their thing and take from what they did well and avoid what they maybe didn’t do so well.”
Having all of that experience looking over his shoulder may have been extra pressure on the young director, but he handled it well, says his uncle Marlon. “Having the guys on the set is definitely a great way to gauge whether the comedy is either going or not going,” says Damien. “But I like to think of myself as a pretty good gauge of what’s funny and what’s not funny. I’m not a big believer in checking the gate or moving on to the next take if you don’t got the funny.”
Behind it all, of course, was Keenen Ivory Wayans, often referred to as the godfather of the Wayans family. “He’s so wise,” brother Marlon says. “Ivory can tell you about anything you want to know, from business to life. He’s not our dad, but he’s kind of like our dad. And his taste is impeccable. When it comes to knowing what’s appropriate, he’s brilliant. We call him ‘the puzzle master’ because he could take something, break it up into a 150 different pieces, and then put it together little by little the way he sees fit. The guy is a brilliant at it.”
Keenen’s instincts are never wasted, even on the younger set. “He’s definitely the godfather of take-offs,” Damon Jr. says. “He knows the formula. I’m all ears when he talks.”
Damien was particularly keen to absorb Keenen’s experience. “We’d call him ‘the ghost whisperer’ on set. He’d come in and whisper in your ear, ‘Okay, it looks good,’ and then he’d leave.”
The best feedback any Wayans could give, of course, was the one thing that follows them everywhere: laughter. “The gold standard is when you hear Damien yell ‘Cut!’ and you hear laughter in the background,” Damon Jr. says. “You want to make people laugh who are really funny, because then you know the masses will laugh even harder.”
The ultimate compliment,” adds Ross Thomas, “after you’d finish a scene, was to hear them cracking up over at video village (the monitors where the director and producers view takes). The sound guys would say, ‘Hey, you’re messing up the sound, guys…We can hear you laughing!’ Being able to make the Wayans brothers laugh is the ultimate compliment on your work as an actor and a comedian.”
The true gauge, of course, is if Keenen Ivory is losing it. “Everybody’s always trying to get him to laugh,” explains Rick Alvarez. “If you can make Keenen laugh, you’ve got something really funny on your hands. Then you know you’ve got something special.”
Damon Jr., the film’s star says, “It made me laugh – and I’m a hard laugh!” “Just come and have fun,” says director Damien Dante Wayans. “Find the funny, enjoy the ride, come have a blast, ‘cause the Wayans family’s bringing it. We all start on one page and we end on the same page – the funny page.”
The Wayans Family: The Next Generation
There have been few screen comedy families who have successfully passed the torch from one generation to the next as the Wayans family has. The Wayans brothers – Keenen Ivory, Shawn, Marlon and Damon – along with sister Kim, first burst onto the screen with 1988’s blaxploitation parody, “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” which led to their groundbreaking Fox comedy sketch series, “In Living Color.” The show not only brought the Wayans clan into the public consciousness, but also launched the careers of such other major stars as Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier, Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Lopez. Keenen also wrote and starred in the film “Hollywood Shuffle.”
The brothers have continued into the millennium with a string of successful theatrical comedies, including the “Scary Movie” horror spoofs, “White Chicks” (2004) and “Little Man” (2006). Additionally, Shawn and Marlon starred on the hit WB series “The Wayans Bros.” for five seasons (1995-1999).
The new decade has brought to light a new, and equally talented, Wayans generation, including Damon Wayans, Jr., Craig Wayans (son of Wayans sibling Deirdre) and Damien Dante Wayans (son of Wayans sibling Elvira Wayans), all of whom honed their skills writing and/or directing episodes of “My Wife and Kids,” as well as contributing material to the brothers’ recent feature films. Other Wayans offspring who have made contributions to “Dance Flick” include Dwayne Wayans, Jr., who co-composed some of the film’s music (with Erik Willis) and Michael Wayans, Damon Jr.’s brother, who appears briefly in the film.
When it came time for a new Wayans comedy, the brothers decided it was time to showcase the new generation. “We’re doing with them what my brother, Keenen, did with Shawn and myself with ‘I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,’” notes Marlon Wayans. “It’s kind of like we’re teaching these guys how to fish, but we ain’t going and getting them no fish – they’ve got to do it themselves. And stay out of my pond,” he laughs.
The film stars Damon Jr. and is executive produced by Craig Wayans, who also co-wrote the film with his uncles and with cousin Damien, who directed the movie. “We were talking about beginning the second generation movement, and we’ve written other movies, plus Damien and I worked together for three seasons on ‘My Wife and Kids,’” explains Craig Wayans. “So we said, ‘We want to present ourselves as the next generation.’” Adds Damon Jr., “We’re just trying to find our own niche, and this is the beginning.”
While most Wayans features have been directed by Keenen, when it came time to select a director for “Dance Flick,” the brothers decided to give Damien a shot. “He’s been around television and movie sets his whole life,” explains one of the film’s producers, Rick Alvarez. “He came up under the tutelage of his uncles, and the guys really wanted the next generation to have an opportunity; it was just time.”
Says Craig Wayans, “Being an actor himself, Damien is very good with actors and being part of the family, he gets their jokes. So, if you get jokes and you’re good with actors, you’re doing great. Some directors get too caught up in trying to get certain shots which don’t necessarily work in comedy, but he’s a great comedic director.”
The results have more than justified their expectations, say the elder Wayans. “It’s great to be able to extend a hand into this generation, to see how they’re coming up. It makes you proud, like a proud father, to watch your cubs,” says Marlon. “They’re like little brothers, they’re like my sons, they’re like my friends. To see them achieve, to go through this process, makes me smile.”
Production notes provided by Paramount Pictures.
Dance Flick
Starring: Damon Wayans Jr., Craig Wayans, Shoshana Bush, Essence Atkins, Affion Crockett
Directed by: Damien Dante Wayans
Screenplay by: Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Damien Dante Wayans
Release Date: May 22nd, 2009
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual content, and language.
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $25,662,155 (96.2%)
Foreign: $1,009,191 (3.8%)
Total: $26,671,346 (Worldwide)