Comedian Tiffany Haddish recently sat down for The Hollywood Reporter’s comedy actress roundtable. She spoke candidly about how recent events have forced her to reevaluate her decisions as an actress.
When asked how the recent events (protests and quarantine) have given her time to reflect, Haddish joked, “Oh, I’m definitely choosing differently. First, I’ve been napping, and I think naps are magic, so when we get back out there, I’m definitely putting in my contracts that I have to have a one-hour nap. That means nobody talking to me, nobody trying to go, “Hey, can we go over these lines?” I need one hour to shut my eyeballs.”
But then things took a more serious turn, “And I’m definitely going to be telling different types of stories and my comedy is going to evolve, too. I want to start doing things that represent Black history and not just the slave stuff because we past all that, OK?”
Haddish, who recently starred as A’Lelia Walker, the daughter of haircare entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker in the Netflix series, Self Made, criticized the roles currently being offered to her by Hollywood directors.
“You know what’s been coming my way a lot lately? The mama who’s been through something, whose kid ends up being hurt in some way and fighting for justice,” she explained.
“And the baby’s sick or I’m trying to get out of jail. Like, no, I’m not doing that. I know people who live that, I’m not doing it. Unless it’s super, super good. The writing has to be impeccable. A lot of times it’s telling these stories that could be powerful, but the writing [turns out to be] garbage.”
Following the slew of Black Lives Matter protests around the country, many Hollywood executives vowed to tackle diversity issues and the typecasting of Black actors and actresses in demeaning roles — but according to Haddish, change may be a long way off yet.
