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Having portrayed an array of iconic characters on film and TV, including roles in Little Shop Of Horrors, School Daze, House Party, Martin and My Wife And Kids, Tisha Campbell’s comedic timing, spirited character portrayals and accomplished musical skills have won her a legion of fans the world over.
NME sat down for an exclusive chat with the two-time NAACP Image Award winner at Fox Studios in Hollywood to talk Spike Lee, being responsible for a number of today’s most famous pop culture references, and how her career almost ended before it began.
Your big break came in 1986 when you starred in Little Shop Of Horrors, which you shot in London, right?
“Yeah, I lived in Bayswater – this was when it wasn’t posh to live there. It was me, Tichina [Arnold], and a girl named Michelle Weeks. We were all from the Tri-state New York area but they had auditioned girls from all over the United States and UK. People don’t know this, but it came right after I had just quit the business.”
What do you mean?
“Right before I got Little Shop Of Horrors I had auditioned to play Regina King’s friend in the show 227 and I didn’t get it. At that point I decided I just wanted to be a kid. I was tired of the rejections and I just wanted to go to summer camp and hang out with my friends.
“In the middle of camp, though, my mom calls me saying that my agent won’t stop blowing up her phone: ‘Tisha, they really want you to audition for this.’ I was like, ‘I’m not doing it. I’m at camp having fun.’ A couple of days go by and she calls me again to say that they still keep calling. I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll do it but as long as I come right back to camp afterwards.’ And then, of course, I got the part.”
You starred in Spike Lee’s School Daze, a groundbreaking movie about the black college experience. Did you understand the importance of what you were doing at the time?
“I understood that I wanted to work with Spike Lee and I understood his cultural importance because he was an African-American director and we didn’t have many of them back then. I just knew I needed to be in the film, and I didn’t care if I was an extra. In fact, I thought I was auditioning for the role of an extra but I got the part of Jane, which was originally meant to be played by Vanessa Williams.”
Why did she not end up taking the role?
“You’d have to ask her. But from my point of view, I didn’t see a love scene in the script at first and then one appeared out of nowhere. So I’m assuming it might have had something to do with that – but don’t take my word for it.”
So you didn’t mind doing the love scene?
“Yeah I minded, I was 18-years-old. I was the youngest person in the cast. But once Spike broke it down I understood it. But not before I gave him trouble. At first, he wanted Giancarlo Esposito, who might have been 30 at the time, to be naked on top of me. But he knew I wasn’t gonna go for it. I fought him tooth and nail over it until I finally did it – but we had underwear on. And every time it came to a part I didn’t like I’d say… Nope! I’m calling my mother.’”
You called your mother on Spike Lee?
“I did, and I love Spike so I’m saying this in pure love and humour. So when we were first supposed to shoot with Giancarlo naked on top of me I was like, ‘No, I’m calling my mother.’ So I called her and she was like, ‘I’ll be right there.’’ She was in California but she came the next day for the love scenes.
“Spike said to me: ‘I’m sick of you calling your mother.’ I was like, ‘I don’t care. This is sick… But then he sat down, got calm, and he broke it down. He was like, ‘We have to show how far this character would go for her man. So I need you to show how far.’ He got me. He pleaded to the thespian in me and it made sense for that particular character. It’s why, still to this day, when I see Spike he always says: ‘How’s your mother?'”
The movie touched upon colourism within the black community. Is this something that is still as prevalent today?
“There are still people affected by it. I have a girlfriend who will say stuff like, ‘Oh, you get a lot of work because you a light skin.’ I’m like, ‘C’mon, man. There was a specific time where it was all dark-skinned girls working. It was Regina King and Angela Bassett. How you gonna make me feel like I ain’t got no talent?’ I always joke about it with her but it really affected her. She really felt like she didn’t work because she was a darker-skinned woman.”
You’ve starred in a number of sitcoms but Martin was probably the most influential. Were you aware at the time just how much of a cultural phenomenon it was?
“No, we didn’t. We were just trying to feed our families and have fun. The first time I became aware of it was when I saw somebody do the ‘talk to the hand’ thing and put a hand in someone else’s face. I was like, ‘What are they doing? You can’t do that in real life. Somebody will chop your damn hand off.’ They were doing the stuff we were doing in the show. We really weren’t aware we were setting trends.”
It spawned so many popular phrases. What would you say are some of the most famous?
“‘Lil’ sumthin’ sumthin” is definitely one of them. We used it in the second episode and then the next thing we know Maxwell has turned it into a song. ‘You go girl’ was another – even though me and A.J. Johnson first started using it on the set of House Party. We actually got it from watching a TV show with Whoopi Goldberg on it. She was cheering somebody on and trying to say ‘get it girl’ but she couldn’t get it out, she was stuttering, and it came out as ‘you go girl.'”
You recently spoke out about the need to bring comedy back to sitcoms. Why do you think people need to laugh more now than ever before?
“It’s just the social climate. I don’t wanna get too political but I think sitcoms for a while were becoming such a lost genre. I have guilty pleasures like anybody else. I enjoy a good reality show. I don’t see anything wrong with it. But there’s something about sitcoms that don’t make you feel bad afterwards. You wanna forget your own problems, and that’s basically what television does for you. With reality TV, though, you’re looking at other people’s problems, whereas when you’re looking at a sitcom you’re just laughing guilt-free. You feel good.”
The post Tisha Campbell: “I once called my mother on Spike Lee over a sex scene” appeared first on NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM.
