Reading the “Career” section of Wayne Brady’s Wikipedia page is like flipping through Ulysses—it goes on and on and on. Is there anything this man hasn’t done? He helped introduce America to improv comedy on Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He hosted his own talk show. He strutted across a Broadway stage in six-inch heels as Lola in Kinky Boots and shot Alexander Hamilton in the Chicago run of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical. He filmed 41 episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful, playing a gambling-addicted British doctor who sold a patient’s baby to make a buck. He voiced a cartoon rabbit in a hit Disney series, as well as one half of the first married gay couple on a Nickelodeon cartoon. He has made people’s dreams come true five days a week for 15 seasons of Let’s Make a Deal. He won the second season of The Masked Singer dressed as a fox, for goodness’ sake.
This month, Brady adds another item to that impressive list, heading back to Broadway to play the title character in a revival of The Wiz, the groundbreaking 1975 musical that later became a film starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. True to form, doling out wishes to Dorothy and crew eight shows a week isn’t the only thing on Brady’s plate right now. He’s also cowriting a project for Stephen King, producing a scripted teen drama, and shooting a Freeform/Hulu docuseries about his blended family. All of this makes you wonder: Are there multiple Waynes out there? “Oh, I wish,” Brady says, calling on his way to the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles during The Wiz’s pre-Broadway national tour. “That would be cool—a little bunch of friends that I could hang out with!” Really, though, it’s just that Brady has drive in spades. “This is a business,” he says, “where, if you don’t do it, no one’s going to do it for you.”
Take me back to your childhood, living with your grandmother in Orlando, Florida. Do you remember watching the film version of The Wiz?
Oh, I vividly remember watching it and knowing that I was seeing something special. At that age, I was already familiar with Michael Jackson and, of course, Diana Ross and Nipsey Russell and Richard Pryor. Being an avid reader, I already knew The Wizard of Oz. I’d read the book and all the other spin-offs, and I’d seen The Wizard of Oz movie dozens of times. So watching The Wiz just blew my mind, because it was still the same story, but I saw faces that looked like me. I heard music that I loved, that I could listen to on the radio. I saw dancing that made me want to move. I saw all these things that moved me in a different way. There was a connection, decades before the words “representation matters” entered the zeitgeist. It’s amazing to see, in an aspirational sense: Someone who looks like you doing something that moves you, doing something that maybe you want to do. Little Wayne didn’t know any of the words for that, but all I knew was it touched me, and it moved me.
This is not your first time performing on Broadway, of course, but when did you first come to New York to see a show?
I think my very first Broadway show would have been The Lion King. I was actually one of the original Simbas that was hired, but I didn’t choose to do it.
Seriously?
Trust me, it broke my heart, because I was like, Oh my God, Disney is flying me out to New York. I think I had just turned 23. But I didn’t take it because I had just started to make inroads in Hollywood. I remember having to make that choice: Do I go and follow my dreams? This is what I’ve trained for—Broadway—or am I that close [to making it in Hollywood]? And I get a call to audition for a show called Kwik Witz, and then for Whose Line Is It Anyway?, so that made the choice for me to stay in LA. Once The Lion King opened, I went back to New York to see it, and I made a promise to myself at that point: I said, “I don’t care what happens, I’m coming back to Broadway.” Because, ultimately, Broadway is where my heart is. It doesn’t pay quite the same [laughs], but my heart’s Broadway. I want that. That’s my dream.
I’m a big fan of Marc Maron’s podcast, and on your episode with him last year you talked about how you wish you had been more “intentional” in your career, especially after looking at your daughter and how she’s approaching her entertainment career. But is there anything you’d actually change? Obviously, all of those choices led you to where you are now.
You are correct, and isn’t that the human condition? All of those choices, including any missteps, brought me to being on the phone with you right now, at 2:58 p.m. my time, here in this car driving to the Pantages. It’s great that I am where I am, and I’m grateful, but [there’s a difference between] being intentional and letting things happen to you. I just bounced around and said, “Oh, all I want to do is work. Oh, they’re hiring at Universal Studios for the Beetlejuice Rock and Roll show? I’ll audition for that. Then I’ll go audition as a cruise ship singer and dancer. Oh, now I’ll audition for a movie. Now I’ll audition for…” All of those things worked out, because I used the skill sets that I got along the way, but maybe I could’ve been more intentional and said, “Broadway is my dream.” I watch my daughter now, and how intentional she is, and she’s killing it at school. She goes to Loyola Marymount, and she’s been a lead in a couple shows there, and she’s written a sitcom that she shopped and did a pilot for, and she’s written a play that got chosen for a national college play competition. I look at her, and I go, “There’s a person who knows what they want.” So it’s not any regrets; it’s just, what’s that like, to actually go into something knowing what you want?
Years ago, you famously appeared in a Training Day parody on Chappelle’s Show, which came about because one of the show’s writers basically said you weren’t Black enough. Do you think Black people are still held to a certain standard or idea of Blackness?
I think as long as people breathe, there will be division and a sideways way of thinking. I think now maybe there is more of a shift in understanding that there’s no one way to be one thing, whether you’re Black, whether you’re Asian—because I have friends who are Asian, and it’s funny to me that in every culture there are derogatory terms that the people within that race use for each other if you’re not in the tribe, so to speak. And I understand where that stems from, especially being Black: For so long, we weren’t accepted, so if somebody is accepted by the others en masse, then you can’t be one of us. I didn’t know it then, but I was being set up as, Oh, that’s the Black guy from that big ABC show. You’re not like us, because you’re not doing our thing.
Right.
The part that I find funny about that thinking is when a white person says something about somebody not being Black enough. I lost a movie role because of that once. Back in the day, I auditioned for that movie Snakes on a Plane, to be the rapper in the film. I know my audition was the s***; it was amazing. I hired background dancers. I freestyled a rap, I made a track. I walked in with a bodyguard. I passed all the people in the waiting room, walked right into the audition, and they were expecting me to read my sides. I said, “I’m not reading that s***,” and we turned on the radio, and I freestyled the whole verse about the plot of Snakes on a Plane and all the characters and everything that I was going to do, and then I walked out.
Mic drop.
Mic drop. I got a call from my agent: “They love you. They love you. This is going to happen!” Cut to, I get a call later when one of the execs—this is a small town, but I don’t think I’m putting anybody on blast—I believe it was Toby Emmerich, at the time, who may have been in charge of everything. “No, Wayne’s not urban enough.” Or, “Wayne’s not, you know.” Oh, you mean Black. How dare you.
That’s crazy.
The good thing is, my good buddy Flex Alexander did [the role], and he killed it. But I’ve lost a lot of opportunities like that. And that’s OK, because look where I am right now: I am in what could ostensibly be the Blackest of the Black musicals, celebrating Black joy with a Black cast, making Black history with our director and our writer. So you can’t tell me anything about myself, because look at me.
Last year, you came out as pansexual, and it became a huge news story. Were you surprised by that?
I’d like to think that we’ve reached the point where a lot of folks shouldn’t care. In fact, I liked when I would see someone’s comment under a post about it, saying, “So what? We get it. I don’t care. Good for you.” Then again, I kind of knew that it would be something, because if you’re in the zeitgeist, you have people that care; you have people that have an opinion. If people make a big deal out of it, great. If people don’t, great. But either way, I’m going to help someone.
You really will. I’ve been moved by how candidly you’ve shared your story and your struggles with mental health. You absolutely do have the power to help people.
That’s so big. Being an artist, I recognize the benefit of having a platform. When people have just seen the glossy side of you, and they think that’s it, then when they hear you come with the real, you do such good. That’s what my life is about now. I made my mind up: I’m going to be candid. I’ve earned the right to love myself and not care, and that’s only going to make me a better man. It’ll make me a better father. It’ll make me a better performer and a better actor and a better person. So I’m going to speak my truth, and if you don’t like it, then you don’t need to watch me.
Was that a big part in deciding to do the upcoming Freeform/Hulu docuseries about your family—to truly be you and let people see that?
Yes. There are a lot of truths that come out, which I love. A lot of artistic truths and family truths. I really wanted to share that on camera, because I want to help anybody who is like me. All of the comments, all of the emails and letters that we get—I get letter letters to my agency— and all these people, it’s the same theme. I’ve had teenagers say, “Now I feel like I can talk to my parents and come out, because of the way that you explained it.” I’ve had people who are suicidal say, “Thank you.” I’ve had people that are my age say, “Hey, I’m 50, and I just got divorced, and this is the thing that I’ve been living with my whole life, and now I feel like I can do it.” I say, “Yes, good for you.” Because how much would it suck to leave this world never being happy?
