NEED TO KNOW
Tommy Davidson appeared on “Rap Attack Official,” talking to the hosts about his journey with the Varnell Hill character
Davidson, 62, spoke about reconnecting with Martin Lawrence to get the project going
Varnell Hill will stream on BET+
Tommy Davidson is thankful for the journey his career has taken him on.
Appearing in an interview for Rap Attack Official, the actor, 62, confirmed that Martin spinoff Varnell Hill is in progress.
“It’s real, we shot it,” he confirmed. “We shot eight of them… We’ve seen the editing and it’s beautiful.”
“Me and Martin got together probably after 14 years. We hadn’t seen each other. We hadn’t been on camera together since the show was out,” he shared, noting it started with a conversation with Christopher ‘Kid’ Reid about the lack of Black late-night hosts.
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The conversation got Davidson’s wheels turning and he reached out to Lawrence, who was “Bad Boy‘ing all over the world,” he joked.
While Davidson said there was “a little hesitation” on Lawrence’s part initially, he quickly realized, “That would be bomb.”
Varnell Hill was a fictional talk show host who appeared on season 2 of Martin. Asked if it was true that the character was based on Donnie Simpson, Davidson shared, “I would say you can say that’s true, because Donnie was the first one that kind of broke into that, took DJs to the camera, you know?”
“It was that type of jockey. But Donnie ain’t phony like Varnell. Varnell’s phony,” he laughed.
While it took five years to get the show truly in motion, it was well worth the wait.
“Let me tell you something man, when I got to that table read, I froze. I froze. It was like, it was too much. I just had to really realize how much this guy loves me, man,” he said, pointing up.
“He couldn’t have set up a better situation for me, because here I am, with all the actors around me and all of the people that are in the crew and have worked with me for the last 35 years, because I worked in everything. But I never had a starring one.”
In the press release for Varnell Hill, the comedian revealed his reaction to bringing back his namesake character.
“Did you miss me? Well, now you don’t have to!” he said. “I’m excited and honored to be a part of such a creative project with the brilliant mind of Martin Lawrence, over 30 years in the making. Fans have requested it and now it’s coming to BET+!”
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source nz.news.yahoo.com ’
