Mike Epps' TV and movie career is really off the charts at this point. He’s a big character in Starz’s Survivor’s Remorse and the upcoming Uncle Buck reboot, and he’s set to play Richard Pryor in an upcoming biopic flick. Recently, he popped up on The Late Late Show with James Corden to talk about his own experience with stand-up, which includes a time he got extremely drunk before getting onstage. You can check out the full story, below.
The story is much funnier if you are watching Epps tell it, but if you are not in the position to watch the video right now, I’ll go ahead and summarize the story for you. Basically, Epps took a bet to do stand-up, as brazen individuals are wont to do. He was a funny guy around the neighborhood but getting up on a stage was a different sort of ordeal. So, to combat his nerves, Mike Epps got drunk. Really, really drunk. Apparently, the alcohol worked, because the actor and comedian killed it onstage that night and was asked to return the following week for the finals in the stand-up competition. While getting drunk can sometimes lead to horror stories, getting drunk onstage totally paid off for this actor.
The next week, however, Epps decided to do things a little differently. He bought a suit and looked presentable. He invited his family and friends. Namely, he decided it was a bad idea to get drunk before he went onstage. As the actor recounted in the video, he was actually booed off the stage because without the booze he wasn't remotely amusing.
Even good comedians can have bad nights, so this whole story isn’t a huge surprise, but it is remarkably entertaining, especially since Epps was able to laugh about it years and years later. If you are familiar with the comedian, you should know that he does a lot better with stand-up these days, touring at venues across the country and –to our knowledge—no longer getting booed.
At this point in his career, Epps is known as a funny guy. Still, we’re happy there’s a fun story behind how he got his start on the stage. We’re more excited for him to pop up on Uncle Buck, though. The comedy was announced by ABC last spring and a trailer was even put together, but then the comedy series was left off both the fall and midseason schedules for the network, which has us a little worried about the show’s potential. We’ll let you know as soon as Uncle Buck moves forward. For now, you can see what is coming up on the networks, cable channels and streaming services with our midseason TV premiere schedule.
And if you love the behind-the-scenes stories that CBS' The Late Late Show with James Corden has to offer, you can catch new episodes on weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET.
