Woody McClain is his name!
But since he starred within the BET 2018 miniseries “The Bobby Brown Story,” fans commonly address him because the “Every Little Step” singer.
That made the actor bristle until the nice Jamie Foxx (who I’m praying for) gave him some advice.
Woody recalled that Jamie said to him, “I come from ‘In Living Color.’ So my first role was Wanda … You bought to embrace it with the intention to move on … You bought to take it.”
“I felt like that was an excellent conversation for me to have,” Woody told me on this week’s “Renaissance Man.”
“I’ve been attempting to determine deal with people not calling me by my name. … It’s been helpful, though.”
Getting called Bobby is actually a credit to Woody’s incredible portrayal of the singer.
“After I first met Bobby, he walked in, he was like, ‘Hell, yeah. He got the bow legs.’ He’s like, ‘You bought to get the gap,’” said Woody, who wore a mouthpiece to mimic the singer’s famous tooth gap.
“Bobby was so cool to work with, man. If anybody has ever met Bobby Brown, you already know how down-to-earth he’s. He’s so stuffed with love. You’re feeling the energy, man,” Woody said.
Everyone in showbiz is feeling Woody’s energy nowadays. He can dance, act, tell jokes and seemingly master any discipline thrown his way.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, he desired to be on television like his aunt Katrina McClain, who won Olympic gold medals for basketball and and is in the game’s Hall of Fame.
He was also fascinated by Eddie Murphy, because his mother went to high school with him and he or she was such a fan.
Then Nick Cannon ended up being an enormous force in Woody’s life.
He saw Nick’s movie “Drumline,” decided he desired to be in marching band and picked up the tuba. He went on to get a full ride to Florida A&M University.
“Man, that was all the things,” he said. “I didn’t need to go to varsity. I just wanted to complete highschool. [But the] HBCU experience, that modified my whole life … As I at all times say in interviews, shout out to Nick Cannon.”
While in college, Woody saw how girls flocked to dudes who could dance, so he taught himself by watching YouTube videos — and ended up working with Chris Brown.
He then decided he desired to act. He’s now working alongside Mary J. Blige in one in all my favorite shows, the 50 Cent-produced Starz series “Power Book II: Ghost,” and in a soon-to-be-released Mel Gibson movie, “Desperation Road.”
He credits his mastery of myriad fields to his old flame.
“I’m so completely happy that I used to be in a position to be an element of a marching band,” he told me, “since it felt prefer it was so military.
“It gave me lots of discipline inside when it got here to acting. …
“It was nothing for me to simply stay home and study.”
But he was also an early adopter of social media, using it as a springboard for larger things.
Particularly, his dance and comedy videos blew up on Vine, the now-defunct platform for posting short clips.
“Social media has been a blessing, because on the time after I began doing it, it wasn’t oversaturated,” Woody identified. “I feel prefer it really opened up lots of doors for me.”
Woody recognizes how unorthodox his trajectory has been — but that’s what makes his story so intriguing.
“I mean, truthfully, my path is just my path. I can’t let you know exactly do it that way because I didn’t have a formula. I’m just out here living and respiration within the moment and it happens for me,” he said, adding that it’s “hard to have those conversations because people think I’m like gatekeeping or something.”
He actually isn’t gatekeeping relating to spoilers for “Power.”
“Season finale of ‘Power,’ expect lots of people to not make it. Oh, yeah. Oh, just leave it like that. Oh. It’s just like the Red Wedding on ‘Game of Thrones.’
“That’s what I like concerning the show.”
And that’s what we love about Woody.
He’s not afraid to go there.
Detroit native Jalen Rose is a member of the University of Michigan’s iconoclastic Fab Five, who shook up the school hoops world within the early ’90s. He played 13 seasons within the NBA before transitioning right into a media personality. Rose is an analyst for “NBA Countdown” and “Get Up,” and co-host of “Jalen & Jacoby.” He executive-produced “The Fab Five” for ESPN’s “30 for 30” series, is the creator of the best-selling book “Got To Give the People What They Want,” a fashion tastemaker and co-founded the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, a public charter school in his hometown.
