Haddish is a ‘Trip’
Comedian brings her blunt perspective and improv gold to movies, stand-up and more
With co-stars like Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith and Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish ( Keanu) might be the least recognizable name in Girls Trip, the R-rated ensemble comedy that arrives in theaters Friday. But as Dina, she’s a standout party-girl character who will make you laugh ’til you cry when she fights a co-worker who took her Go- Gurt, flashes Diddy at a concert and threatens to defecate in a man’s shoes.
The latter thing, Haddish also did in real life.
“When I was 21, (a guy) cheated on me on videotape,” Haddish, 37, recalls in her signature blunt delivery. “He didn’t have no nice car, he didn’t own a house, ( but) he had a pair of brand new Jordans, (so) I pooped in them.” Yep, this girl is comedy gold. Next up: She’ll headline a Showtime stand-up special, She Ready! From the Hood to Hollywood! (Aug. 18), continue her comedy tour (with new dates this fall) and publish her memoir The Last Black Unicorn ( Dec. 5). Four more reasons you should pay attention to Haddish:
SHE LOOKS GREAT WHILE DELIVERING FILTHY JOKES Though Haddish has been given plenty of backhanded compliments about being too good-looking for comedy, “I never felt like I was a pretty girl, ever,” she says. “Guys talk really filthy and I always hung with guys (at school), so I talk a little dirt.”
That explains why you can see Haddish mime oral sex and talk in excruciating detail about Brazilian waxes onscreen.
SHE’S BEEN DOING COMEDY SINCE SHE WAS A TEEN Haddish had a tough upbringing that involved being raised in a foster home and getting in trouble at school. To curb Haddish’s bad behavior, her social worker gave her an ultimatum: Do psychiatric therapy or Laugh Factory comedy camp for disadvantaged kids.
Choosing camp, where she learned from Richard Pryor and Dane Cook, “changed my whole world,” Haddish says. “When I was almost 16, they did a news story on Channel 2 (about me), a young black girl coming from the ghetto rising above hardships through comedy.”
“I thought I was gonna be famous after that story, ( but) nobody cared,” she says. Her big break came more than a decade later when she appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show.
SOME OF HER BEST ONSCREEN MOMENTS WERE IMPROVISED There’s a scene in BET’s Real
Husbands of Hollywood where Haddish enters the room, slaps Kevin Hart, takes his money, and then goes off-script by hilariously smooching a passed-out Boris Kodjoe, because “I always wanted to kiss him,” Haddish says matter-of-factly. “I thought I’d be fired.” (She wasn’t.)
Meet the Spartans features a bunch of Haddish’s “Yo Mama” one-liners, and on Girls Trip, Haddish improvised many of her character’s jokes, including a laugh-out-loud-funny monologue about hiding a cheating man’s body, using Q-tips on his genitals and, yes, pooping in his shoes.
SHE’S HUMBLY LIVING THE DREAM On an early-morning phone call, Haddish is peppy, because “I woke up today and everybody don’t get to do that,” she says. It doesn’t hurt that she just got a call about two potential movie roles.
“I’m tired a lot of the time (with work), but I’m living the best dream ever,” she says. “I’ve been doing comedy a long time, (and) I’m excited for the world to see what I prepared.”