David Alan Grier is not dead yet — his words, not ours. “Fossilized, dead yet still breathing,” he cackles, mid-story about a reporter who once mistook him for a secret Wayans brother. “She just doubled down on it. ‘That’s what I love about you,’ she said. I was like, ‘I’m not a Wayans.’ She won, though. I finally just went, ‘Okay, I’m a Wayans.’”
Forty-plus years into a career that should by all Hollywood logic have hit a valley by now, Grier’s just here to remind you his box is packed and he’s ready. “I started working in 1981. People told me, ‘There will be a valley.’ I never stopped working. Knock on wood — this strike was the longest period I’ve gone without work in over 40 years.”
In 2023 alone, he’s Santa in Candy Cane Lane — “Finally my pandemic beard paid off,” he says, before admitting it wasn’t white enough, so the studio made him wear a bigger fake beard anyway. He’s also playing preacher Shug’s dad in The Color Purple, a role that feels like full-circle revenge for bombing an audition for the original 1985 movie. “I was born to play Harpo. Didn’t even get a callback. I was devastated.”
Grier’s career is a masterclass in whiplash. One minute he’s in a musical about incestuous rape — “Let’s sing about it!” he deadpans — the next he’s Antoine Merriweather reading Hollywood to filth in a jockstrap. He points to Michael Keaton for inspiration. “The same year he did Clean and Sober, he did Beetlejuice. That was my goal. I want to be all over the place.”
He’s got stories for days — swapping industry gossip with Martin Short inside a clock costume for Beauty and the Beast, realizing the “original TV” was ancient tribes telling bonfire stories, or learning how to scream “like my head explodes” in Jumanji. “Filming magic is never magic. Thank goodness movie magic exists, because what we do is silly little acting that changes society.”
He knows people still pigeonhole him. “People say, ‘I didn’t know you did drama!’ I used to be offended. Now I’m like, ‘Google it.’”
Next up is The American Society of Magical Negroes. Grier says the teaser gave him goosebumps, which is impressive considering he’s seen enough Hollywood magic to know most of it’s just grown adults waving their arms at tennis balls on sticks. “It’s thrilling. We become children again. We want to be carried away.”
The man’s 67, and he’s still not done revisiting the same roles that launched him. He’s come back to A Soldier’s Play so many times, he jokes he’ll be the ghost next. And he’ll say yes every time. “It’s not about ‘Will this add to my legacy?’ I’m on a roll. I’m ready. My box is packed.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the trailer below.
