The Wayans and Ms. "White"

The hilarious Wayans family who brought you the wacky Scary Movie films, White Chicks and "In Living Color" the TV sketch show that launched Jim Carrey, send up every film from the classic Flashdance to High School Musical in their crazy spoof of the dance/romance genre Dance Flick. Playing Megan White, that dancin' girl from the rich side of the tracks in love with the dancin' ghetto boy, is pretty blonde actress Shoshana Bush.

In Beverly Hills, along with a group of other reporters, we met with Shoshana, producers Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans, director Damien Wayans, actor/executive producer Craig Wayans and cute lead male star Damon Wayans Jr. The Wayans family was in comedy performance mode through most of the chat. When beautiful, blonde Shoshana joined the group wearing a classy black dress and with her hair neatly pulled back, the boys went wild! "Wooooo, Sho-Na!" "That's hot. You look like Sharon Stone [in Basic Instinct]".

The Wayans asked each reporter his or her first name, after which they all gave us a huge mass, hip-hop shout-out that made us laugh hysterically. Mine was "Lynnnnnnn, wazzup, La-Lynn? La-La-Lynn, Lynnnnnnnn in the purple blazer. Here's your shout out!" or something like that. Then I got to ask questions..

TeenHollywood: How did you choose which type of films to spoof this time around? Why dance films?

Marlon: We decided this was the [type of film] that we were just tired of. Let's do this.

Shawn: It looked like a fun [type of] movie to send up. It actually chose itself.

Damien: Whenever you start seeing repetition in the same type of movies over and over, it's time to "get Wayans'd".

TeenHollywood: Shawn and Marlon, when you were performing years ago, did you plan a future family dynasty of entertainers or just luck out that everybody was talented and wanted to perform?

Shawn: It's kind of like organized chaos. We didn't really plan it but it just happened. Because one person was doing it, you look up to the person that's older than you and the oldest person teaches the younger guy how to do it.

Marlon: I've said that if Keenen [Ivory Wayans, the oldest sibling] would have turned out to be an engineer like he had planned, we'd probably have a family full of engineers.

Shawn: Boring family.

Damien: But a lot of nice cars!

TeenHollywood: I was glad to see shout-outs to old school dance flicks like Flashdance and Fame. How did you decide to include those and the non-dance flick Twilight you satirized the end?

Marlon: It's like the wedding day for us; a little bit of old, little bit of new, something red, a little blue. I think you have to have something old because those are classic movies and you always want to poke fun at them. We had a Dirty Dancing scene in there but it was just a little bit tooooo dirty.

TeenHollywood: Will it be on the DVD?

Shawn: Hopefully, the red label one.

Marlon: It was so bad someone threw up and we might have crossed the line a little bit. In terms of Twilight, as long as it works for the film [they spoof the prom dancing scene]. We didn't just jump on the Twilight bandwagon because it made over a hundred million dollars. We were heavily influenced by Disaster Movie.

TeenHollywood: How will this type of film go over outside the U.S. say in Europe?

Marlon: It's physical comedy and I think physical translates everywhere.

Shawn: You haven't been to Europe.

Marlon: I have too. I just finished G.I Joe in Prague.

Damien: They like physical and good characters and we add some pretty spicy characters in there so even if you never saw the dance movies, I think there is still a lot to laugh at. And Brit TV. We were big Monty Python fans, Benny Hill, love you Benny.

TeenHollywood: Damien, the family chose you to direct this. When you sit in a room, who decides who is going to do what?

Damien: I think this was a younger type movie, kind of in my wheel house and I've been a student from afar, been admiring Keenen for my whole life and I just felt as though it was my time and I did other things on the side. I was directing television. I directed a short film. I did the route that you go through before your first big shot and I got it and the guys trusted in me and, here we go, Dance Flick!

TeenHollywood: But how does it work in one room with all the Wayans' trying to put the movie together?

Marlon: It's like having ten bad kids in a classroom but they also just so happen to be the principal.

Shawn: Usually, if Keenen is there, he's heading the writer's room. He's steering us in the right direction. If Keenen's not there then it's me and Marlon runnin' the writers' room.

Marlon: But, on this movie, 'Lil D Rock... you know, Damien, this was his ship [as director]. He's the captain. If there's a production meeting, he holds court and our producing partner Rick Alvarez works in tandem. We let the young man do his job to make the movie.

TeenHollywood: There are plenty of racial stereotypes in the film. Did you ever feel, in this or other films, that you just went too far in that direction?

Marlon: I don't think we went too far. People know what we do. We've been doing it since "In Living Color" [on TV].

Shawn: We're an equal opportunity offender.

Marlon: Yeah, we do it with kid gloves. We're not just bashin'. We come with some jokes that are hopefully really funny and it comes from character. I am Black. I have sensitivities but I think we approach with kid gloves and one of the greatest compliments we were able to get was when we did 'Men on Film' [a popular movie review skit from "In Living Color"], a lot of the gay community would write in that it's their favorite character. Some people might tell the same joke and it would be offensive. Oddly enough, we're able to tell a joke and people kind of like it.

TeenHollywood: What was your favorite movie to spoof in this film?

Shawn: Save the Last Dance.

Marlon: Yeah, it was actually a good movie for the time and lent itself to a good storyline that everybody kind of bit off and it was the common denominator for the movie and we used that one the most.

TeenHollywood: When you guys argue amongst yourselves when working, what do you argue about the most?

Craig: I'm usually wearing Marlon's clothes or something.

Marlon: You've got my drawers!

Shawn: Usually over comedy bits. What's appropriate for the scene.

Damien: Which way is it better or funnier?

Damon Jr.: And we just have to trust them.

TeenHollywood: How do you decide which celebrities to skewer or spoof?

Marlon: I think a lot of the celebrities select themselves with things they do and they just make it ripe to parody [note: for example Britney, Lindsay and Halle are all spoofed for their various driving violations and tickets].

Shawn: Plus the audience will tell you. We only do it if it's appropriate. It kind of fits within the confines of a song.

TeenHollywood: Hey Shoshana what was it like being on a set daily with this bunch of crazy guys? Did they tease you and did you fire it back at them?

Shoshana: Well [looks around] as you can see. You have to laugh. They will fire it right back at you but you have to have a good sense of humor. That's what they're all about, having a good time. If we weren't joking on set, they were teaching me something and I learned a lot from them. I learned something different from all of them. Damon and I would get together outside of work and knock off different ideas. He helped me with my improv and Shawn was like the words of wisdom and would pull me aside and be like 'all right, Shoshana, get ready for this'. And, Marlon taught me how to push it to the very edge. Damien taught me how to formulate but have a good time with it and really guided me. Craig was awesome too. [The Wayans all start teasing her]. See. That was what it's like. I'm being fired at but I don't have a family to back me up.

Marlon: We threw a lot at her but she was able to take direction well and made us proud. She's fearless.

Shoshana: Aww, thanks.

TeenHollywood: Shoshana, you have some fun clothes in this film. They parody the clothes from the spoofed films but they're fun. Did you get a say in your costumes?

Shoshana: When I became a Black girl, I got to pick what I got to wear including my fake booty. I got to pick my wig. It was really fun. I had a say in some of my wardrobe because they wanted me to be comfortable in this.

TeenHollywood: Guys, if you were to spoof the Wayans Family in a movie, what would we see?

Shawn: We can't give that away.

Marlon: We're waiting for those other guys to do the movie so we can go to a movie about them.

Craig: Well, [to spoof the family] you can just go the easy route and do a lot of kids.

Marlon: Listen Mad Magazine did one that was hilarious back in the "Living Color" days. It was so hilarious. We all laughed extremely hard at it. They called Keenen something like Klingon Ivory Wayans.

TeenHollywood: What song, the first time you heard it, had a profound effect on you?

Damien: [sings] 'Dreams can come true'. I used to listen to that song and be like 'I'm gonna make it'.

Damon: I fell in love with this girl when I heard 'Skanky Leg' [laughter... check it out on YouTube]. I was like 'she's the one!'

Marlon: What was that song from Fame about 'burnin' like a million stars? In time we will all be stars'. It was the song they sang at the end of my graduation at Performing Arts High School. It really gave us all chills because we worked so hard during our tenure at school. For me and my boy Omar Epps, we're still best friends, and that's the song that fuels me.

TeenHollywood: Marlon, we'll be seeing you acting in G.I. Joe later this summer. How do you bring an action figure to life?

Marlon: It's actually kind of cool. I used to watch all my friends play with G.I. Joes. I couldn't afford 'um.

Shawn: He had those cheap little plastic Army men with their feet stuck together.

Marlon: But watching them and watching [the TV show] "G.I. Joe" every day, you'd rush home after school and you'd get to watch that. Now, I actually have a doll [of his character] that kids are gonna play with. They'll have Snake Eyes kick me in the neck but, hey, I'm immortalized! I'm very proud of it. The action is sick! Steven [Somers, the director] did an incredible job. It's not campy but doesn't take itself too seriously. It has some humor. It has adventure, humor, romance. It's crazy.

TeenHollywood: So, for Dance Flick, were you always going to cast Damon Jr. here?

Marlon: He had [a funny line] in his audition. That's what got him the part.

Damon: Yep.

Marlon: We didn't want him before that. No, we didn't want to make it too 'Wayansie'. We tried to look for somebody else and he came in and read and we let him come back again. The second time, he just blew us away. Little Damon Jr.

TeenHollywood: Marlon, you worked with Channing Tatum on G.I. Joe. Has he seen your spoof of him in Step Up in this film?

Marlon: Yeah. We filmed this as I was filming G.I. Joe. Channing has a great sense of humor and he would come into my trailer and watch the dailies of us doing Dance Flick and he just would be cracking up. He'd be like 'oh, y'all are fooling'. He was watching his scene and he said 'hey, dawg, is that me?' 'Yeah'. 'That shit's hilarious'. I love this guy. He has a great sense of humor about it.

TeenHollywood: Who in the family is actually the best dancer?

Shawn: I think Little Damon and Craig are the best [argument ensues with jokes about the older Wayans clan].

Damien: Some of them have been dancing since "Soul Train" and "Solid Gold".

TeenHollywood: Damon, you are the male lead in the film. Did you get pressure from the family to do a great job or just put pressure on yourself?

Damon: I put the pressure on myself to just do the best job that I can but they're really nice to me and give me pointers and I just have to be as funny as I possibly can.

Marlon: Yeah. We didn't give him no pressure. We just said 'If you suck in this movie, you'll blow your father's legacy. That's on you!' [laughter]