Tera Roberson
Staff Writer
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How far-fetched is the idea of a college student strapped for cash? Not very. With that all-too-familiar situation in mind, actor/comedian Marlon Wayans tackled the role of Darryl Witherspoon in Senseless with appropriate comic zeal.
Darryl is as an economics major with big financial problems. He's willing to do whatever he has to in order to provide for his family. It's in the true spirit of the Jamaican family on Fox's former comedy skit show, In Living Color.
Darryl's motivation is not a keg of beer for his fraternity party, but his family's needs. He has already donated blood, sperm and even pubic hair. So, when he gets word of a sensory experiment that will pay him $3000, he jumps at the chance.
As the competition stiffens for the Smythe-Bates Junior Analyst position and the rent goes further past due, Darryl strives to get ahead and runs headfirst into the laboratory.
The experiment starts off smoothly enough but ends like a bad science project. As the pressures on Darryl increase, so do the dosages of the experimental drug. Convinced that he can be even better than the rest of the guinea pigs, Darryl takes a double dose and ends up losing his senses completely.
Wayans plays opposite David Spade of NBC's Just Shoot Me. They are rival college students competing for a top-paying position on Wall Street.
Darryl is in for the fight of his life, and Wayans rises to the occasion gloriously. Relying on the physical humor like that of comedian Jerry Lewis, the young actor lights up the screen with his zany antics. Falling, salivating and even scratching his way across the screen, Wayans proves that he has more than just good jokes.
Wayans said he admires many comics (including all of his brothers), but he also pointed out that he does not try to copy anyone in particular in his own work.
"I'm a fan of a lot of people. I have so many different people that I look up to, but I never try to emulate anybody," Wayans said during a recent interview. "I think that all of the great comedians had their own persona, and their own point of view and their own flavor."
"What I do is try to be me, Marlon. And hopefully one day I will be looked at as my own person, not like the guy that tried to be like Richard Pryor."
Wayans said his interest in the project was sparked by both curiosity and respect.
"The amount of physical comedy that I could do attracted me (to the movie). I liked the script, the idea of a guy who lost all his senses. Everybody wonders about what it would be like, so it's just the content alone that attracted me to it," said Wayans. "And then it was also the chance to work with Penelope Spheeris, who is a director that I have admired since Wayne's World. She did a great job with that."
Wayans went so far as to put his butt on the line, literally, for a laugh.
"I showed my ass. I thought it would be plain old funny. I'll go pretty far for a joke," said Wayans.
Nursing a cold at the time of the interview, Wayans admitted if he had to give up any of his own senses, it would have to be his sense of smell. "I get a cold and I can't smell anything, so that means I can't taste anything either."
Although the idea of super senses may be extreme, the fact that Darryl Witherspoon had true character and real feelings is not. Wayans said he plans to do more of those types of roles in the future.
"Every comedy I deal with I like to have heart. I want to make sure that they have heart. Like Senseless has heart. I do think that (the audience) will be surprised, and that is a good thing," Wayans said.
Much like his character in Senseless, Wayans said failure was never an option if his engine had stalled early in his career.
"If Hollywood didn't work out, I'd still be doing Hollywood," Wayans claimed. "I would have found a way to make it work. There is no way anybody could have told me I couldn't do it."