Marlon Wayans’ spoof horror film “A Haunted House 2″ hits theaters this Friday, April 18, 2014.
The Source Magazine sat down with the film’s star Cedric The Entertainer to discuss reprising his role as the ratchett pastor!
I didn’t think it was possible for your character to become even more ratchet in this film, but he does. Talk a little bit more about your character Father Doug Williams?
Father Doug is supposed to be a man of the cloth, but he is also a man of the gun, he is pretty much the thug godfather. In this movie … Marlon’s character needs more help, and you see me shank a dude at this church, and then I come over and try to solve this little situation they had where the demon was going crazy. It gets the best of me this time.
We just saw you on the live return of “The Soul Man,” on TV Land, talk about the difference between the character on that show and Father Williams. Both are preachers, but very different.
There are a few similarities in the sense that both of these guys are trying to transition. In “The Soul Man,” my character is a former heathen R&B superstar that sang a lot of really sexually explicit songs and now I’m trying to save souls and trying to get my life on the right track. All being pulled by different directions, either back to the stardom. Father Doug is the kind of person who lived a hard life and he got his idea to save people in prison, and yet he really identifies with the harder side of himself, and therefore Father Doug still won’t quite let go of his past. He brings it with him even though he’s trying to get people over to the righteous side.
Talk about longevity and the climate for comedic actors today in Hollywood.
It’s really exciting, I think the opportunity in this year, you saw the real meteoric rise of Kevin Hart and his ability to make comedies and movies work, that also opened up a lot of lanes now, where again I think a lot of great comedians will have these opportunities to tell their stories and show up and be in great places. For me, it’s been that, to use all the mediums, television, commercials, film and I try to make myself present in all of those throughout the year. Even going into daytime with the talk shows, all are a very important part of taking your fans and moving them to different places, and then going back to doing some cool Youtube stuff as well to grab a younger, interesting audience, or movies like this that have a teenage audience that likes to come out and see something crazy and have a big laugh. So being apart of these kinds of films is important. It’s all abut diversity and trying to keep the wheels pedaling. That’s why I say.
Who would you say is next as a comedic rockstar and what’s next for you?
There are a lot of really cool, young cats out there, it’s hard to really call it, I really like Deon Cole, I like Lil Rel. There’s a lot of cats out there that are doing pretty good. For me, it’s all about more movies, more television, I’m about to do a really hot show on the CW called “Barber Battle” where I’m going to go around in the hood and see all the top haircut dudes, that can really get down and have them battle it out. It’s going to be really cool.
-Chasity Saunders (@itsmechasity)