By Fred Topel | Image property of Universal Pictures.
The Jenkinses are just an all star family. The title character of Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins is played by Martin Lawrence. His father is James Earl Jones. His siblings are Michael Clarke Duncan, Mike Epps and Monique. Even his cousin is Cedric the Entertainer. Even though Cedric is a big personality, he played the role that was written in the family comedy.
Cedric the Entertainer Welcomes Home Roscoe Jenkins
"The core of it was pretty much there," said Cedric. "It was just that I think the only thing I tried to add was that Clyde was supposed to be a little more easier of a pushover and I made the relationship between me and Martin a little tougher, like a little more tough love than it was supposed to be. I pushed it just a little bit more so that you kind of felt something there, that they don't really like each other so when we did make up, it had a little more value to it."
With so many stand-up comedians in the cast, everybody waited their turn to be funny. "For me, it was really a lot of fun. There's a lot of great comedic talent in this movie. One though, we were all fans of each other so it was a point of letting people have their shine. I definitely declared Martin to, especially being the lead in this movie. It's always the kind of scenario where you want to make sure that other comedians sometimes are pushed down a little bit. He just took the attitude that he's got his lane and I got mine and Mike Epps and Monique, so we just felt like we just wanted to watch each other."
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
Sometimes, Ced would set up a line just to see where his costars would take it. "There was definitely times where you can't wait until somebody's turn. You're like, 'All right, cool, this is my stuff' and you hit the ball out of the park. You can hear other people with their ideas kind of firing up, like if you throw something out there, like, 'I'm going to say this when the time comes.' We just ended up being really great fans of each other just kind of watching and waiting and especially somebody like Mike Epps who's totally off the cuff. You have no idea where he's going to go."
Cedric still got some solo scenes of his own to improvise. "I think a lot of the speeches and stuff at the end where I'm crying and talking, I'm making up a lot of those stories, like all that stuff was going on. There were takes there that I thought probably could have been funnier but I may have flubbed a line or didn't really tie it all together because I was just improv'ing a lot of it. I would go off on these crazy long tangents about how he raised me and sleeping in the bed and it was just funny. I don't know. So the outtakes should be hot, definitely."
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins is out in theaters now.
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