Post by -|E|- on Sept 25, 2006 8:10:10 GMT -5
All about the dramatizations
Anthony Anderson leaves comedy for 'The Departed'
BY LAURA DeBRIZZI
NYDailyNews.com
Originally published on September 24, 2006
Anthony Anderson faces Mark Wahlberg in 'The Departed.'
Anderson in 'Kangaroo Jack' in 2003.
Gone are the days when Anthony Anderson shared top billing with a kangaroo.
Up until recently, the chubby comic with the jack-o'-lantern smile and infectious laugh was a staple in comedy movies such as "Me, Myself & Irene" (2000), "Barbershop" (2002), "Kangaroo Jack," "Malibu's Most Wanted" (both 2003) and the "Scary Movie" franchise. But in 2005, after his WB sitcom "All About the Andersons" was canceled, he turned serious with a role in "Hustle & Flow," and this past season he had a recurring part on FX's "The Shield."
Now Anderson's got his biggest dramatic rite of passage to date: a role in a Martin Scorsese film. In "The Departed," opening Oct. 6, Anderson plays a Boston police recruit whose fate becomes entwined with a mob boss' mole on the force and a cop who's gone deep undercover in organized crime. Anderson shares screen time with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg.
The A-list cast, which also includes Jack Nicholson and Martin Sheen, is a far cry from a CGI marsupial. But Anderson is confident he held his own.
"You never want to get shown up on screen, because film is forever," he says. "You want to be able to play and volley [with co-stars]. As long as I can get the ball back over the net every time it comes to me, I feel I've succeeded. ... and I never detected any egos. There wasn't an air of pretension from anyone."
The tough world of "The Departed," though set among Irish gangsters, is emotional turf not unfamiliar to the 36-year-old married father of two. Growing up in Compton, in South L.A., Anderson saw tough things, but points out that the neighborhood has other sides than the one depicted in raps by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre.
"The gunshots rang out at night - maybe not in my front yard, but up the block - but [things were okay], my parents owned their home, a modest home, as did many others in my community. Not all of my neighbors were angels, but there are still those of us who went on to be lawyers, doctors and entertainers, in spite of what we were up against."
Anderson, a self-proclaimed "comic by nature," attended Los Angeles' High School for the Arts. He won an arts scholarship to Howard University, where he got his bachelor's degree, and pursued comedy.
After his first jobs on TV (a teen series called "Hang Time," some episodes of "Ally McBeal"), Anderson got silly in the Farrelly brothers' "Me, Myself & Irene," opposite Jim Carrey. And though that kangaroo he, Jerry O'Connell and Christopher Walken boxed with in "Kangaroo Jack" would be some kind of marker, Anderson soon tried for edgier stuff, most notably in action thrillers like "Cradle 2 the Grave."
When not on duty during the filming of "Departed," Anderson says, he spent some time on the golf links and attempted to crack the dialect spoken by Damon, Wahlberg and others in the cast who reside deep in Red Sox territory.
"I hope I'm speaking with a Boston accent [in this movie]," Anderson says with a chortle. "When anyone spoke [on set], I always found myself saying 'What?' "Huh?' 'Come again?' But I tried the best I could."
Anthony Anderson leaves comedy for 'The Departed'
BY LAURA DeBRIZZI
NYDailyNews.com
Originally published on September 24, 2006
Anthony Anderson faces Mark Wahlberg in 'The Departed.'
Anderson in 'Kangaroo Jack' in 2003.
Gone are the days when Anthony Anderson shared top billing with a kangaroo.
Up until recently, the chubby comic with the jack-o'-lantern smile and infectious laugh was a staple in comedy movies such as "Me, Myself & Irene" (2000), "Barbershop" (2002), "Kangaroo Jack," "Malibu's Most Wanted" (both 2003) and the "Scary Movie" franchise. But in 2005, after his WB sitcom "All About the Andersons" was canceled, he turned serious with a role in "Hustle & Flow," and this past season he had a recurring part on FX's "The Shield."
Now Anderson's got his biggest dramatic rite of passage to date: a role in a Martin Scorsese film. In "The Departed," opening Oct. 6, Anderson plays a Boston police recruit whose fate becomes entwined with a mob boss' mole on the force and a cop who's gone deep undercover in organized crime. Anderson shares screen time with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg.
The A-list cast, which also includes Jack Nicholson and Martin Sheen, is a far cry from a CGI marsupial. But Anderson is confident he held his own.
"You never want to get shown up on screen, because film is forever," he says. "You want to be able to play and volley [with co-stars]. As long as I can get the ball back over the net every time it comes to me, I feel I've succeeded. ... and I never detected any egos. There wasn't an air of pretension from anyone."
The tough world of "The Departed," though set among Irish gangsters, is emotional turf not unfamiliar to the 36-year-old married father of two. Growing up in Compton, in South L.A., Anderson saw tough things, but points out that the neighborhood has other sides than the one depicted in raps by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre.
"The gunshots rang out at night - maybe not in my front yard, but up the block - but [things were okay], my parents owned their home, a modest home, as did many others in my community. Not all of my neighbors were angels, but there are still those of us who went on to be lawyers, doctors and entertainers, in spite of what we were up against."
Anderson, a self-proclaimed "comic by nature," attended Los Angeles' High School for the Arts. He won an arts scholarship to Howard University, where he got his bachelor's degree, and pursued comedy.
After his first jobs on TV (a teen series called "Hang Time," some episodes of "Ally McBeal"), Anderson got silly in the Farrelly brothers' "Me, Myself & Irene," opposite Jim Carrey. And though that kangaroo he, Jerry O'Connell and Christopher Walken boxed with in "Kangaroo Jack" would be some kind of marker, Anderson soon tried for edgier stuff, most notably in action thrillers like "Cradle 2 the Grave."
When not on duty during the filming of "Departed," Anderson says, he spent some time on the golf links and attempted to crack the dialect spoken by Damon, Wahlberg and others in the cast who reside deep in Red Sox territory.
"I hope I'm speaking with a Boston accent [in this movie]," Anderson says with a chortle. "When anyone spoke [on set], I always found myself saying 'What?' "Huh?' 'Come again?' But I tried the best I could."