Marlon Wayans loves a good scare but he wouldn’t tolerate anyone attacking him on stage the way Dave Chappelle was last week at a comedy festival.
“That was crazy,” Wayans said in a brief interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I love how that guy got his butt beat. He was like a piñata.”
Wayans will be at Center Stage Theater Saturday night and said there will be plenty of security so don’t think about bum-rushing him.
“I will use my mic stand,” he said.
Wayans also spends a lot of time in Atlanta shooting Netflix films. After comedies “Naked” ((2017) and “Sextuplets” (2019), he last year produced what is tentatively called “Boo!” in metro Atlanta.
He has a thing for horror and comedy, following the success of four “Scary Movie” films and two “A Haunted House” movies. In “Boo!,” which is set to debut in the fall on Netflix, he plays a dad to a rebellious teenage daughter Sydney, played by Atlanta-based “Stranger Things” star Priah Ferguson. She accidentally unleashes the spirit of Stingy Jack, the spirit of all jack-o’-lanterns and as a result, Halloween decorations come to life. She reluctantly works with her dad to save the town and the world.
“I love mixing comedy and horror,” Wayans said. “You get to go horror, comedy, tension, tension, scare, then a joke.”
And he enjoys working with Netflix. “I like to work,” he said. “They appreciate that I have a huge international audience.”
But he isn’t exclusive to them. After releasing a stand-up special with rival streaming service HBO Max last year, he recently hosted a comedy stand-up special with them called “Marlon Wayans Presents: The Headliners.” The five rising stars are all comedy club headliners who have not yet become household names: D.C. Ervin, Tony Baker, Chaunté Wayans (Marlon’s niece), Sydney Castillo and Esau McGraw.
“I wanted to give them a bigger audience,” he said. “I love giving a showcase to my friends.”
He’s proud that many of his films, no matter how silly or satirical, remain perennial favorites and draw new generations, be it the “Scary Movie” franchise, “White Chicks” or “Don’t Be a Menace.” His movies are largely critic proof, with those six films alone generating more than $540 million in collective domestic box office gross. They also became popular on DVD and basic cable.
“You watch them today, they’re still relevant,” Wayans said. “We’re not about a time. We’re about the spirit of the culture. It’s eternal.”
And despite all his time in Atlanta, Wayans said you won’t see him at Magic City or any other local strip clubs. He said he focuses on work here.
“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” he said. “The devil lives in Atlanta.”
IF YOU GO
Marlon Wayans
7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 14. $41.50. Center Stage Theater, 1374 W. Peachtree St. NW, Atlanta. centerstage-atlanta.com.
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