'Skyline's Donald Faison Talks Love For His Girlfriend and Why Eddie Murphy is Still A Comedy King
After nearly a decade on NBC's hit comedy series Scrubs and star turning roles in films like Clueless, Waiting To Exhale and Remember The Titans, Donald Faison is back on the big screen. This time he's battling alien life forms out to destroy Los Angeles in the new indie sci fi flick, Skyline. VIBE spoke with Faison about how he had to work hard suppress the funny in his latest film. Plus, the divorced father of three opened up about his love for Jessica Simpson BFF, girlfriend Cacee Cobb and he shared his thoughts on why old school Eddie Murphy was, is and will always be the 'King Of Comedy.' —Ronke Idowu Reeves
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VIBE: What was the craziest thing you encountered shooting a film like Skyline?
The funniest and craziest thing about shooting Skyline was not being able to be funny and crazy. For the first time in my career I couldn’t use something that I’ve relied on to sell myself. I couldn’t use my humor and that was different and difficult for me at some points. There were times in the script where a joke would have been so great to ease the tension. But the director didn’t want the tension to be eased; there was no room for it. I would say things like, ‘this could be a great joke here.’ And they were like it’s the end of the world Donald, would you really make a joke at the end of the world?’ And I was like, ‘that is true; you don’t necessarily want your audience to start laughing, not at those moments [laughs.]
Guys usually love action movies because it gives them the opportunity to do stunts, did you do any of yours?
I did all my own stunts, yeah. Not one person did a stunt for me in this movie. It’s always great to do stunts. I grew up playing basketball and baseball, I like to think I’m am athletic person. Later, when I did Remember The Titans they taught me to play football. I don’t necessarily want to fall and hit my head on the floor or my spine on the floor or anything like that. But if it’s something I can do I want to do it. Some of the stunts are very difficult and I have no business doing them, but most of it’s pretty much running and jumping. And you can twist your ankle running on a treadmill. So if it’s dangerous for me to run period, then I’m doing the stunt. Also there’s CG effects in it too, so hanging from a building isn’t necessarily you hanging from a building. It’s you hanging on a fake ledge that they built with floor underneath you and you’re actually standing up, or lying down.
