About three months ago, maybe around 90 days ago, I got a call from Richard Pryor's wife, that she wanted to meet me.
But I'm real conscious about what I do. I don't care what the label is. I'm looking at the outcome of it.
Cedric, man, it's like if I'm working with you, like I'm sitting here now talking to you, I want to get along with you. That's how I am. I feel like if I get along with you, the work will be splendid.
Every movie is like the first movie to me, that's how I feel. I'm excited every time.
Every now and then you get a nice Jewish kid who likes black people and they would come in, and it would be a stream of them, and have black friends and really feel the black struggle on the acting tip and it's a reason why all of us are not dying in the movie.
Everybody that's living in this earth is living in a situation. It's not narrow-minded to the point where everybody is serious and nobody has a personality. I think people die telling jokes.
Federal prison, if you get any of it, you're going to have to do 85% of it. And the reason why I called it that is because I had a friend who got sent to the federal joint and his whole... it wasn't about him being in jail. He cried about the 85%.
Honestly, I feel like I am a leading man, and it's just going to take the right project, the female and the right studio. It's got to all gel together, you know what I mean?
I can remember when I was a baby and my mother was there watching the show. I went and bought 100 episodes and watched them. I respect it so much that the sitcom itself and Ed Norton; I'm not playing Ed Norton but my version of it, cause I'm a black man.
I don't know nothing about no marriages or nothing. I ain't even never been to a wedding.
I don't know why people think I'm this ad-lib dude.
I learned that you don't have to be all over the place, that you can be subtle and you can say what you say. The words that you put together can be just as hilarious as falling all over the place or doing something.
I left Indiana, and I ain't been back since. I've been doing comedy and paying my bills.
I love Richard Pryor. I love him to death.
I think in life, the sense of humor and comedy always exists.
I was ad-libbing some of that stuff. What so wild about this film is that the director didn't know what to do with me. If you watch the movie, my character doesn't really have a purpose in the film. I'm just a guy that was in the city before it became Armageddon or whatever it was and I was just me.
I watch old school film so that I can learn so much that I just sort of miss all the new stuff.
I'm a survivor of life. I try to give the glory to God and appreciate what's happening to me.
I'm engaged, on the way to being married.
I'm going out tonight and hit about three or four clubs. I'm running around because it's like therapeutic for me to talk.
I'm gonna have to develop myself. I'm just going to do the best that I can do.
I'm humble enough to wait and just chill. I'm having fun just working with these good people, man.
I'm telling a Richard Pryor story through me.
I've been with this young lady for about two years now, and my life changed. I don't even think that way no more. I feel good, too, that I'm changed. Now I feel regular. I feel like I'm supposed to.
Just the fact that I'm in the game is great. I'm just blessed to be working. I got a plan, but I'm humble and I try to be humble.
She didn't break his heart, but I feel like a man is supposed to be a man, he ain't supposed to be all involved in that. That's why she got sisters and friend for. Just show up with the ring and act right.
They have what you call a black night where they have black people come in for just one night only to watch comedy, and you get all your local drug dealers, thugs, prostitutes, all of them come in, sit down, and listen to you tell jokes. They the hardest people to make laugh.
They want to see The Honeymooners, they still want to see The Honeymooners. We're up against that, and also our audience, a younger audience that don't know nothing about it. They're going to see it because they know us, so we gotta entertain them and die-hard people that really love it.
When you're an actor, you meet actresses.
With Ice Cube they ain't no telling. He might have one cocked and loaded, ready to bust. We might do The Sunday, two old men sitting around the house waiting on the social security check.
Women like to get married. Men... I'm keepin' it real. I had a friend, he was too into it and he got his heart broke.
Yeah, I don't mess with chicks younger. They got to be almost thirty.
You know, my life's changed now. I'm starting to experience what people are really supposed to do. You supposed to be married. You're supposed to have a family, kids, treat your wife right.
You know, you can't make the people do what you want them to do.
You would be surprised of films that people just don't see. You know what I mean? I'm always working and I'm a film buff but I'm an old school film buff.
Mike have eight siblings.
By 1995, Mike Epps had been on the Def Comedy Jam tour and starred in two of HBO's Def Comedy Jam broadcasts.
Mike is set to star in a biography movie about the late Richard Pryor's life.
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