EXCLUSIVE: Marlon Wayans Channels Eddie Murphy In Netflix Comedy ‘Sextuplets’
From Shorty in Scary Movie 2 to Marcus Copeland in White Chicks, Marlon Wayans has brought a bevy of colorful characters to screen, but never all at once. In the upcoming Netflix comedy Sextuplets, Wayans plays an expectant father named Alan, who is trying to connect with his birth mother before the arrival of his first child. When Alan meets his brother, Russell, he discovers that he was born a sextuplet, and together they set off on a journey to find their other four siblings—all played by Wayans.
Director Michael Tiddes, who has worked with Wayans on White Chicks, Little Man, A Haunted House and Naked, describes their latest collaboration as “The Nutty Professor on steroids.” Tiddes is, of course, referring to Eddie Murphy’s 1996 remake of the Jerry Lewis comedy where he played five different members of a large and in-charge family, the Klumps.
“It’s crazy. I have so much respect for anybody that’s ever gotten in this makeup to do this,” Wayans tells BET.com. “Eddie Murphy should have won an Oscar for The Nutty Professor. When I seen him at the table playing six people, that blew my mind as a grown ass man. He was amazing. But this movie is a little different, because we’re actually moving in the scenes. You see the characters interact. We’re actually physically in a scene with each other.”
With 20 years of filmmaking advancements to play with (as well as a large family to recruit body doubles from) Wayans is pushing the envelope of both film and his artistry with Sextuplets. Growing up in a strict, religious family kept Wayans from dressing up for Halloween as a kid, and now he gets to make up for lost time, literally and figuratively. Get it? Make up? Forget it.
“This is for all the years my father said we couldn’t celebrate, I’m celebrating now!,” Wayans says enthusiastically. “Trick or Treat, em’effer!”
Sextuplets premiers on Netflix August 16.
