E-mail a friendKatt Williams
airdate June 8, 2007
Multitalented comedian-actor Katt Williams had a passion for performing as a child. Starting at age 13, he worked odd jobs, including magazine sales and traveling with a carnival, before getting into stand-up comedy. Williams has been a regular at L.A.'s Improv and Comedy Club and appeared on Nick Cannon Presents: Short Circuitz and, to rave reviews, in the films, Friday After Next and Norbit. He also stars in his own HBO comedy special and still tours the country performing stand-up.
Katt Williams
Tavis: I'm laughing already (Laughter) Katt Williams is a popular and successful stand-up comedian who's performing this summer as part of his "The Pimp Chronicles" tour in addition to his role on MTV's "Wild 'N Out." You may have seen his HBO last year. I did. It was so funny. In fact, I'm told it was the highest rated special on HBO for all of 2006. It was funny. His most recent film role was in the Eddie Murphy comedy, "Norbit." That movie is out this week, bam, on DVD. Here now a scene from "Norbit."
[Film Clip]
Tavis: Katt, how you doing, man?
Katt Williams: I'm excellent, sir, thank you.
Tavis: When you walk on the set with a hat on, it makes everybody upset. The director's mad because he can't see your eyes. The floor director's shouting out, "Can you push your hat up so we can see your eyes?" But everybody else is mad because they want to see your hair today. You ain't got your hair out today.
Williams: Well, you know, as a comedian, I've learned the lesson that it's very hard to please all the people, so I really just start with me. So if I'm happy with the hat, then that's pretty much what we got to work with because otherwise, with no talent, they don't care about a hat. So I'm fortunate that people want to see any part of me whatsoever.
Tavis: (Laughter) How you been, man?
Williams: I have been excellent, sir.
Tavis: Yeah. Tell me about the character that you play in "Norbit," first of all. We'll start with that. We saw a little bit of that just to help it.
Williams: You know, it was just a regular character.
Tavis: Come on. Quit lying. You've never played a regular character.
Williams: It didn't even matter what I did in this movie. That was the blessing. You know, the blessing is not in the amount of work you have to do, but what happens that you aren't in control of. When they brought this to me, it was Eddie Murphy, Marlon Wayans, Thandi Newton, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terry Crews, etc., etc., etc., and "Do you want a part in it?" So I really didn't care what my part was. I'd have played the reluctant slug just to get - I'm much smarter than Kobe. I want to be on a good team, thank you.
Tavis: Yeah, Kobe's hot these days, isn't he? Since you went there, he has a right to be upset, don't you think?
Williams: About?
Tavis: (Laughter)
Williams: When I put my kids on punishment, they're upset. But, you know, you're suffering for what you did. We all go through that. It happens.
Tavis: Kobe said he didn't push Shaq out. He said Jerry Buss did that.
Williams: Thank goodness it only took him three years to tell us what really happened. It's kind of interesting. Well, don't tell us when we're asking. Wait until we've forgotten it happened and then remind us that you didn't do it. It's okay. It's all right. It's okay.
Tavis: (Laughter) Should we get to a certain point where we make so much money that we should not complain about anything?
Williams: I would hope not because that's probably when your money stops. Because complaints generally mean that you're not happy with a situation. As a comic, at least, money is not conducive to what you do. Like the laugh comes from the struggle, so, you know, I try to complain as often as possible because I'm never comfortable. I think you want to stay uncomfortable as long as you can.
Tavis: To your point, Katt, we are told - I'm told at least in fact by a lot of comedians who've been on my radio and television show who find Richard Pryor, when you ask who their hero is, everybody says Pryor, and for legitimate reasons. But when you look at the great ones, they end up finding comedy out of the drama, out of the turmoil, in their life.
So you are in your stride now, you are hitting your mark, your HBO special was off the charts. Is that true for your comedy? That it comes from some sad place, some drama in your life?
Williams: It's sad right now. I hadn't really thought about it until you brought it up. Let's rewind the tape back to when I said, "How you doing, Katt?" "I'm excellent." Now I'm depressed, thank you.
We didn't make it up. Like there's the comedy symbol. It's the happy face and the tragedy face right there, so there's no getting around that. You can't. Comedy and tragedy are together. We need to laugh because of the way things are, so I'm just fortunate that that's what my job entails. What a beautiful job.
Tavis: Well, for all the hell that Negroes catch, then we should be walking around cracking jokes all the time, shouldn't we?
Williams: We do, we do. Which is why our comedy is a different brand of comedy. You know, comedy is universal, but we have a special brand just because for so long we've had quite a burden and that's where the laughing comes.
You couldn't pick cotton day in and day out as a slave and yet not find something funny. Maybe it's just funny that you got whipped and I didn't. I find that funny. I haven't been whipped in three days. He gets whipped every day. Learn how to pick cotton, why don't you? I mean, maybe he won't beat you if you'll just do your homework.
Tavis: (Laughter) Somebody's going to send me a letter about this saying, "That was not funny! That was not funny!"
Williams: It's fortunate that people have time to write a letter about what's not funny. They didn't write me a letter when I said something that was funny.
Tavis: What's funny about that, though, is that you know that even in the slave fields, to your point, there were some Negroes cracking jokes.
Williams: Had to be.
Tavis: Had to be.
Williams: As certain as there are tears in situations, there are laughs as well.
Tavis: Speaking of your brand of comedy, how do you explain to people - I read a quote you made the other day which I thought was profound that one of the things you want to do is to bring the dignity back to comedy. Juxtapose for me bringing dignity back to comedy and incorporating your comedy under this banner or this guise of "The Pimp Chronicles." Is that oxymoronic?
Williams: Not any more oxymoronic than the fact that we took over a place that has most of the oil and our gas prices went back up. If that's oxymoronic, then I guess it all is (Laughter) I can't make sense of it.
The dignity that I spoke of was the dignity in the fact that comedy is at the lowest portion on the totem pole when it comes to the entertainment field. People feel like drama is a much higher calling than comedy is. But if you can make a hundred people laugh at one time, which I know that I can do because I've done it, I would dare anyone to make a hundred people cry at one time.
If you can do it, fine. You're better than me, but I don't think you can do it. I don't think you can tell a story - I don't think you can make a hundred people angry at one time, but I can make a hundred people laugh at one time, and I want to bring that to the forefront.
Tavis: George Bush made a whole lot more than one hundred people angry about your point a moment ago.
Williams: Yeah, he did, but he's still president, and therein lies the pimping. They want to focus on me because -
Tavis: - is the president a pimp?
Williams: Government, in general, is a pimp game.
Tavis: Explain that for folk who don't quite get that.
Williams: Well, our embassy in Iraq costs five hundred sixty-two million dollars. Our embassy in Iraq is bigger than the Vatican. Now why is that? How is that even possible that our embassy there is bigger than the embassy where we live? Sounds like pimping, right? Five hundred sixty-two million really? Okay. It's all a game and we're happy. I'm glad I'm on the winning team. I'm glad to be an American because this is the pimp stuff that we do.
Tavis: (Laughter)
Williams: We're making people take freedom by gunpoint. Do you realize how pimping that is? Like this is all about freedom. We want them to be free and, if we have to kill you to make you free, then we shall.
Tavis: That's big pimping.
Williams: That's big pimping in the highest form.
Tavis: (Laughter) We're laughing, but the thing about your comedy that I happen to love personally and the arguments that I get into about why I'm such a Katt Williams fan, my point is always this. That he entertains and he empowers. He has his own brand, his own way of doing it, but it's entertaining and empowering at the same time.
How important is it for you to do both as opposed to just being funny? The jokes don't have to have meaning behind them. You could just tell jokes.
Williams: Right. Well, you know, that's a different brand of comic. There's a lot of comics who can talk about, you know, being a squirrel for thirty minutes and have you laughing about being a squirrel. There's nothing wrong with that type of comedy.
It's just that I believe I'm funny. I really believe it, and I got some stuff I want to talk about and I want to see if it's funny to other people. I'm just fortunate that, you know, that's the way it's worked out. But comedy is fickle, which is why you have to keep working on it. But all that really matters is the funny. My message doesn't matter. The funny matters.
Tavis: I've referenced it three times now, but how big career-wise was the success of that HBO special?
Williams: Well, you know, as a comic, there's no other mark for you to hit. Like there isn't a plateau that you go to that's higher than the one-hour HBO special. So just doing one puts you on a very elite list of maybe eleven African American comics. So just to be one of the eleven was good enough. Then for us to do the numbers that we did was wonderful.
But I had already done my job. I just had to do the special. I just had to get it out. This is the best representation of me right now. The fact that the people at Katt Pack were able to come together and make that the representation I wanted to put out was so important.
Tavis: So tell me before you get out of here about the tour this summer. I got to catch you somewhere this summer. You everywhere?
Williams: We're on a hundred-city tour, so if you're missing me, you're doing it purposely.
Tavis: You stopping like, what, 2012 or something? The year 2012? A hundred cities?
Williams: Yeah, we'll finish. We're doing four cities a week, so we're going through them. We were able to do multiple shows in Radio City Music Hall and we taped our special number two in Chicago, so that comes out theatrically this year. We're just hitting as many cities as we can.
Tavis: You already taped number two?
Williams: Yeah.
Tavis: As funny as number one?
Williams: Funnier.
Tavis: Funnier? Big pimping (Laughter) That's why I love him. "Not really. It's just what I do."
Williams: I tried harder and I had gotten a little more money, so I felt like I was in a better place.
Tavis: Yeah, fill your net. A little more money usually leads to a little more funny (Laughter)
Williams: I would hope so (Laughter)
Tavis: Good to see you, Katt.
Williams: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
Tavis: My pleasure.
Back to June 8, 2007