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RELATED LINKS

• Mr. Lawrence's bio
• Q & A with Mr. Lawrence
• Big Momma's House 2

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Tavis: I am pleased to welcome Martin Lawrence to this program. The very successful career he's had in show business includes, of course, his own hit sitcom, "Martin," which I'm watching on repeats every night. You get paid for that every night?

Martin Lawrence: They gotta send me something. (laugh)

Tavis: Okay, okay. (laugh) And a string of hit films like 'Bad Boys" with Will Smith, of course. 'Life' with Eddie Murphy. His latest is the sequel to 'Big Momma's House,' which opens this Friday. Here now a scene from, go figure, "Big Momma's House Two." Big Momma's still out of control. Martin, how you living?

Lawrence: I'm good, man, good to see you, man.

Tavis: Good to see you. You doing all right?

Lawrence: Yes, yes. Hanging in there.

Tavis: Looking well. So you can do, like, 10 of these things, huh? You ought to do Rocky or something.

Lawrence: Well, it depends on the audience. If the audience likes it, we'll do 40 of them, yeah.

Tavis: How do you keep something fresh like this? 'Cause when people had such a good time at the first one, that sophomore jinx can get you sometime.

Lawrence: That's where you hope good writers come into play. They bring you new story ideas, new subject matter to talk about. And that's what you look for.

Tavis: So I'll let you explain it, but the short line on this one is, in the first "Big Momma,' she was saving her granddaughter. Now she's, like, saving the world. (laugh)

Lawrence: Well, yeah, well, she kind of goes undercover as a nanny, 'cause the father is a suspect. And that's the best way to get close to him. They're trying to get back this disc that threatens national security. (laugh) So Big Momma's doing big things, much bigger, much badder, much fatter, whatever.

Tavis: And I don't wanna give the movie away, but Nia Long is back. And you have, shall I say upgraded?

Lawrence: Yes.

Tavis: Yeah, the relationship is upgraded.

Lawrence: Yeah, we married, and she having one of my little ones in there. And it's a good thing.

Tavis: Tell me what you have to go through every day to, like, prepare for this character. How many hours you sitting in makeup and fat suits and all that stuff?

Lawrence: Two to three hours every morning, getting glue stuck to the back of your ear and your nose and this whole fat suit you have to put on and everything. It's a lot of work. A lot of work.

Tavis: You obviously have done 1,001 things. Is it worth having to go through that every single day for this whole period? To do a project that you got this much invested in?

Lawrence: It's worth it when people come out and support it and like it. It's well worth it. It's a lot when you're going through it, but like I said, when people love, it's well worth it.

Tavis: When you get a script for a piece like this, like a sequel, what's your internal gauge? Obviously, this comes in part from being a comedian and having been successful at this. But when you see stuff on paper, 'cause a lot of times sequels just don't work, 'cause they don't live up to the first one. How do you that, okay, this is ready for me to do as a sequel now, and I think that this is funny. What's your gauge?

Lawrence: I look for a blueprint. 'Cause a lot of the scripts I get, they ain't never really never on the page anyway. So I look for a good blueprint. Something that I could work with. 'Cause I like the improv things and everything, especially if I'm working with a director that allows me to do that. So if there's a blueprint there and I go okay, well, this scene says to do this, but yo, we could take it here, we can do this, we can, I try it.

Tavis: So you star in "Big Momma's House Two,' and you produced, EP, "Big Momma's House Two.' What's that mean?

Lawrence: Oh, that just means I have a voice behind the scenes. I'm able to kind of speak on things that I don't agree with, and hopefully, they respect it.

Tavis: Is that important on a project like this and, moreover, is that important for a guy like you, who is improv-ing anyway? So who's telling you what to do anyway? You Martin Lawrence, you improv. Ain't nobody tell you what to do, even if you ain't EPing the project, are they?

Lawrence: (laugh) Right, but you want to work together as a team. It takes a team to make a success, so you know, you want people to hear your voice. But at the same time, you wanna hear their voice and their opinions. And you guys come as one in trying to make something work.

Tavis: I am so delighted to have you on the program, and there are two things I've been wanting to ask you. Delighted to have you here in part because you went through a period in your life where you, it seemed to me, at least, as I've been trying to get you to sit down for, we know each other for years. But get you to sit down for a conversation has been another issue.

But for a while, you actually, like, stopped talking, in a sense. You stopped doing interviews, you stopped doing appearances. Was that a conscious decision, to pull away from doing a lot of media outreach?

Lawrence: No, I didn't stop. I just...

Tavis: You just didn't talk to me, is that what you trying to tell me?

Lawrence: Yeah, no, I just didn't...

Tavis: You just didn't come talk to me. (laugh)

Lawrence: No, I just, I didn't have nothing to say. I was too busy trying to get me together. Me in order. I had so many things going on in my life. So, I had to get me in order before I could get out and talk about anything, you know what I mean? So, I took time off. Wrote, (unintelligible) so that I could tell my story in my way. I just had to take the time to myself.

Tavis: One of my friends says to me all the time, we are all cracked vessels. None of us is human and divine. We're all just cracked vessels; we are on a journey trying to become better people every day. And if we're Socratic, we're examining our own lives every day, trying to figure out how we can be better. And I admire you for the process you've gone through.

You seem to be at a place of peace and your work obviously is on the point. How did you, and I'm not going back into that, but we've all read about the challenges you had that you spoke of now. How did you get through that? How did you navigate your way through that to this place of peace that you appear to be at now?

Lawrence: First and foremost my God. My faith and my belief. My family, my friends truly were there with me every step of the way. When times were hard, I wasn't believing in this or believing in that, or getting in this, getting in that, they stuck with me all the way. And no matter what all the negative things that was being said about me, a much greater force was working in my life, which was my God.

Tavis: I went back and looked at, if you're doing your research when you talk to somebody, you go back and do a little reading. And I think I knew this, because we had met years ago at the Comedy Act Theater. So I think I knew this, but I had to remind myself that you were 27 when you hit it with "Martin," the TV show.

Yeah.

That's like a lot of success to come in your twenties. How much of the challenge that you had in your career came from having so much hit you at one time? 'Cause we see examples every day of people who get stuff as an onslaught, and it just is like an avalanche.

Lawrence: Well, you get it, and you don't wanna give it back. (laugh) You know what I mean?

Tavis: (laugh) I ain't mad at you for that, now.

Lawrence: I got it, and I didn't want to give it back. I didn't mind sharing, you know what I mean? And bringing people along the way. But it was an opportunity for me to bring me and my family up, you know what I mean? And I was willing to go for it at any cost, you know what I mean? And making people laugh.

It wasn't nothing that I wouldn't do on Def Jam. Wasn't nothing I wouldn't do in concert or say, to a degree. And I just went for mine. It was just like you had to seize the opportunities and the moments, and that's what I did.

Tavis: Looking back on it now, would you have changed anything about to way your success came? Anything?

Lawrence: No. 'Cause I'm one of the ones that got through. I'm one of the ones that they, all the odds were stacked against me. I was the underdog. So, you know what I mean? And I was able to get through the doors, you know what I mean? And crack some doors open that weren't open and things like that. So, I wouldn't change anything, you know what I mean?

Tavis: At this point in your life, when you have the kind of control you want to EP a project like "Big Momma's House Two,' when you look back in retrospect at having that success at an early age, and having gone through a difficult part of your life that you were blessed to get through, how does that inform you as a man now? How does that inform your decisions now?

Lawrence: It's big, because it was my trial, you know what I mean? And my trial and my error. And it lets me know as a man that you know what I mean, what I need to be doing, what I shouldn't be doing, what don't work for me, what I can't be doing. (laugh) And what I wanna be doing. And I'm a father, and I'm so proud of that.

And I'm a growing person. And I realize first and foremost I'm a human being. So, I never claim to be nothing but human to anybody. So mistakes that I make are mistakes that I make in my life. And if anybody could learn from me by example, and what I went through, you're welcome to it. Pull out the blueprint. Check it out. But I'm doing all right.

Tavis: You doing more than all right, brother. I'd trade places with you, I'll play your hand. I will play your hand. (laugh) How did I miss, in all the success that you've had, how did I miss that you were, like, a Golden Gloves champion at 13? I better lean back as I say that, (laugh) I don't want you to have no flashback or nothing.

Lawrence: 'Cause people, that's something they don't really talk about too much. But I was athletic when I was young. Not in basketball or football, but always in the physical sports, like taking karate. Boxing. I'm not a tall guy. I'm not a big guy. So, I always had to protect myself. And boxing is just something that I always loved.

And when I had an opportunity to fight in the Golden Gloves, and I didn't get to win, but I got some experience. Then I went on to win the AAU Championship. It feel good to me, 'cause I (unintelligible). (laugh) It keeps them off me when they don't think I got these. I like to be underestimated. (makesnoise)

Tavis: (laugh) Yeah. How did you fall in love with the sweet science? How'd you get turned onto it as a kid? I was a Ali fan growing up, but yeah.

Lawrence: Well, I'm from Maryland. Sugar Ray Leonard was, I loved watching Sugar Ray Leonard and all his fights, and Muhammad Ali, and I was just a big fan of theirs. So I just followed the sports. And me and my friends, we all hung together real tight. We all decided to take ourselves to the boxing gym, and just to get in some kind of recreation, 'cause we wasn't doing nothing but standing on the corners and stuff, just doing nothing.

Tavis: So how big a weekend is "Big Momma's House Two" gonna have this first time out?

Lawrence: The people will decide that. I hope they go out and see it, though. Yeah.

Tavis: Yeah. It is a great project. What's next? I'm sure you've got, like, eight things lined up already?

Lawrence: No, no, hey, I take it step by step. I take my time. I got an animated thing with Ashton Kutcher coming out called Open Season, where I'm the voice of Boog in there, the bear. So that was fun. I think that's gonna be nice for kids. And right now, we're just reading scripts and trying to pick the right one.

Tavis: Speaking of "Martin' and animation, my favorite season, in terms of the opening of the show, was the year you did the animated open to the 'Martin' show. I loved that animated opening of the show, when the character's, you know, on the show.

Lawrence: Oh yeah, with the big head, yeah. (laugh)

Tavis: Exactly. Exactly, that's the one. (laugh) I loved it. Martin, glad to see you.

Lawrence: Thank you.

Tavis: Thanks for coming on to talk to us.

Lawrence: Thank you for having me.

Tavis: It's my pleasure. That's our show for tonight. Talk to you this weekend on PRI, Public Radio. Check your local listings. Thanks for watching. Good night from LA, and keep the faith.