(Featured photo above by: Paul Lee/NBC)
This past weekend at San Diego Comic-Con 2015, Nerd Report was invited for a roundtable interview with legendary actor Wesley Snipes. In this roundtable interview, Snipes talks about his new show ‘The Player,’ stunt work, disguises and other TV role offers.
Photo by Chris Salce
Q: What about ‘The Pit Boss’ attracted you the most about ‘The Player’?
Wesley Snipes: That he’s ambiguous and also something from an actor’s point of view, I get to play a lot of different characters. Mr. Johnson’s job is to make sure the game is always in play and the rules are always at hand to him. When the rules are broken, whether that be by the gambler or the players, Mr. Johnson’s job is to clean things up and as the cleaner, that afforded me the opportunity to do some accents and some funny stuff, use disguises like mustaches, suit and hair do’s and have a little fun.
Q: What’s the craziest outfit you had to wear for the show?
Snipes: Well you’re gonna see…I figure a gigantic baby diaper is in the future somewhere [laughs].
Chris Salce: Do you think you’re going to have to go back to the To Wong Foo days and put on a dress and a wig?
Snipes: I bet that’s coming up too! [Laughs] Heels and stockings!
Photo by Chris Salce
Q: Were you looking specifically for a TV role?
Snipes: No I wasn’t looking for…actually, I’ve been offered a number of other TV projects and the apprehension of that was the demands of television on your time, the amount of time it takes to do a television series, it kind of closes you from doing feature film. I still have a growing feature film career [laughs] so…I didn’t want to stop doing feature films and this was a project that the character was set up in a way for the opportunity for me to still do stuff. The idea of doing feature film, drama and action on a weekly basis, that was also quite attractive.
Q: Philip [Winchester] was saying that this show is bringing the kind of eighties style action back to TV, is that sort of the same vibe as you got as well?
Snipes: Well, I hope we’re not doing that eighties style [laughs] nooo…I like Walker Texas Ranger but eh…we want to raise the level and modernize it. The thing that’s cool about this is that it won’t just be about the action of it, I think there’s really strong characters and character development and some interesting plot twists that will keep you engaged. For me, if it doesn’t have that then the heck with the action and it’s gratuitous. We have characters we like and are intrigued with as well as situations we haven’t really figured out, haven’t really been telegraphed so we already know the exact direction it is going and then throw the dynamic action on top of it.
Photo by Chris Salce
Q: Does your character go through a lot of stunts or is he just controlling the action?
Snipes: Man I’d kill these people if they didn’t let me do stunts and action, I’d be so unhappy! [laughs]. No, I wouldn’t have taken the role if I didn’t have the chance to explore the whole action side. There’s actually some action and material arts things that I can do that people haven’t seen me do without a costume on, so this will give me the chance to display all the abilities that I have and even singing, most people don’t know that I can sing so we may see Mr. Johnson singing.
Catch Wesley Snipes on The Player on NBC September 24.