The Laughs Keep On Coming
Story and Images by DeWayne Rogers
Styling by Kudzi Karidza
Marlon Wayans is really scared. But you’d never know it, since at the moment he’s successfully firing off side-splitting jokes in rapid succession that have the entire rolling out crew gasping for air. But what exactly has Wayans so frightened? For starters, it’s the horror genre, which is a bit ironic when considering the penchant for the famed Wayans clan to mine that genre repeatedly for comedic nuggets.
But as we spent time with the 40-year-old funnyman, we discovered a man who battles fear with comedy. As Wayans prepares for the Jan. 11 nationwide release of his latest flm, A Haunted House, could this be his latest comedic attempt to fight fear, be it the fear of ghosts and serial killers, or maybe even the fear of failure? We set out to get some answers, and let’s just say that the results were hilarious.
You keep making your way back to horror, first with the Scary Movie franchise, and now with A Haunted House. What is it about the horror genre that you continue to find interesting?
Because I’m scared of the s–t. So, I take my pain and make other people laugh at it. I’m scared as hell of those flicks, so in order to deal with my scare, I crack a joke. I’m like that guy in the movie that’s scared, and nervous and always cracking jokes — and he’s probably the second guy to get killed — but you need that guy. That’s me. For me, I was just sitting there watching these movies going, ‘I’m so tired of seeing white people doing s–t … it’s like, look, if you hear a ghost, f–king move — leave; what [are] you investigating for? Everybody thinks it’s a parody, but it’s kind of not — it’s really just a horror comedy with parody moments.
