NEWS

YouTubin’: Tropic Thunder’s Brandon T. Jackson

All the press attention for Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder, which opens tomorrow, has gone to Robert Downey Jr. and his controversial turn in blackface. We’ve seen the film, and Downey definitely deserves dap for an awesome performance.

But let’s not forget the real black guy in the mix—newcomer Brandon T. Jackson. His name may not be on the marquee, but the comic caught our eye with a spot-on portrayal of a rapper-turned-actor in Stiller’s war-movie troupe. We heard the role was originally supposed to go to Mos Def, but there’s no way he could’ve done a better job. We caught up with Brandon to go over five YouTube clips related to the film and his career…

CLIP 1: “Blackface Montage from Spike Lee’s Bamboozled”

BRANDON: “They had us looking like monkeys back then. You look at the things and it’s like, that don’t even look like black people. Looking at the way they had us portrayed back then, and it’s like, do you really want to call Tropic Thunder blackface? I am very sensitive to how blacks are portrayed in the industry, because I’m black [laughs], you know what I’m saying? People are getting me and Robert mixed up like, ‘Man, you did an excellent job with that line at the end of the movie,’ I’m like, ‘Nah, that was Robert. I’m the real black person in the movie.’

People are saying it’s just like Soul Man; no, the difference is Soul Man, that was blackface. But I wouldn’t call Tropic Thunder blackface—Robert became a black man. Like, I’m not used to seeing Robert white, right now I might not recognize Robert. When I see him on TV, I’m like, ‘This dude is really white.’ I told my momma that Robert was Don Cheadle when she was getting his autograph. [Laughs.] And Robert like, ‘Uh, uh, no. I’m uh…’—he didn’t know what to say to her. I said, ‘No, momma, that’s Iron Man.’

CLIP 2: “Apocalypse Now Original Trailer”

BRANDON: “We had to watch a bunch of war movies. Over and over and over. Too much. You know, Ben is a very intense director. So he likes everything perfect. Apocalypse Now was the main one. And I don’t know if you know, a lot of crap happened on that set—people were dying and stuff. I’m like, ‘What the hell? Nah, nah, what we doin’ here Ben?’ Because he was like, ‘It’s gonna be a lot like Apocalypse Now.’ I’m like, ‘Who’s dying in this movie, Ben? Hell no.’ So, of course, there’s a lot of stuff that they cut out that would be like Apocalypse Now. There’s a scene where we’re sneaking into the compound, where we come out the river real quick. It’s so quick, but I was in the river for hours. And you know, it was just like—we had to go through gun training, and we had to go through all this stuff and I’m like, ‘Come on, Ben. We went through all this gun training and now you’re gonna cut it out?’ It was Ben Stiller’s Comedy Death Camp. He’s the Spielberg of comedy.”

CLIP 3: “Tip Drill - Nelly”

BRANDON: “My character Alpa Chino was based mostly on Nelly and a little bit of Lil Wayne. I know Nelly and Weezy from doing stand-up on their tours. Lil Wayne, was always—I’ma do the HBO special, I’ll tell y’all that dude smokes too much weed. I’ma say it. They cut some stuff that’s not in the movie that you’ll see on the DVD. There’s a big ole’ party scene where you get more of a chance to see Alpa Chino’s personality. I hate to say it, but I wrote the ‘Pussy Song’ from the film—‘I love that pussy, hell yeah, I love that pussy.’ I’m from a very Christian home and kind of a strict family, but it’s like, at the same time you got to look at what I do is like I’m an entertainer. My job is to entertain. So, that’s what I chose to do and I got to take it, the good the bad and the ugly. Alpa Chino is the total opposite of my character in real life.”

CLIP 4: “Funny Shit - Chris Tucker”

BRANDON: “Chris is one of my inspirations. He really taught me a lot in the industry. Will Smith, too, and also Sinbad. Those three guys have really been mentors to me. (Roll Bounce director) Malcolm Lee deemed me the next Chris Tucker just like, Chris Tucker was the next Eddie Murphy. I don’t mind it if we’re talking about $20 million a movie. I will be the next Chris Tucker. Because right now, when I make it rain, I pick the dollars right back up. I’m the only one doing that. I’ll make it drizzle, man.

But you know what? I really do look up to Chris and I think that hopefully, I have a successful career like him, I mean, but opposed to him, I really want to do a lot more movies. And that’s where I look at Will. A lot of people say, ‘You’re a cross between Will and Martin.’ I pride myself in being a comedian. Like, people pride themselves as being a rapper or actor and I really pride myself as being a comedic actor. But the thing is, they don’t write good roles for us. They just don’t. And you got to go and write it yourself, which I’m doin’ now. I’m writing things now, it’s middle-age comedy that I think the urban and suburban culture would love to see.”

CLIP 5: “Top 8 - Brandon T. Jackson”

BRANDON: “I was on tour with T-Pain when MySpace was just kind of breaking and I was like, ‘T-Pain, we got to do a song.’ This is before T-Pain was—I won’t call him Robot Man, but you know before he got into his sound and when he was trying to figure out if he was gonna be a rapper, singer, whatever. So we was down in the studio that night and just randomly cut it and we put it up on T-Pain’s site and it got like two million hits. And you know, people were just making their own videos to it and I sung it on tour with me and Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, Juelz, and Franchize Boyz—man that was a hell of a tour. So yeah, we just did the song out of fun and it blew up out of nowhere. People loved it. I don’t know if I’ll ever re-release it. I’m a comedian, man. You don’t want to see Chappelle rapping, you know what I mean? Eddie Murphy tried to sing and we saw what happened with that. I’ll do funny songs all day, like ‘No sex in the champagne room.’ You gotta just make sure you’re that funny.