Omar Epps - Brief Article - Interview

Interview, June, 2000 by Kobe Bryant

AN ACTOR WHO KNOWS THE MEANING OF NERVE

KOBE BRYANT: Mr. Epps! What's happenin', dog?

OMAR EPPS: What's gain' on, baby?

KB: I'm chillin' in the studio. So tell me about this basketball game you got goin' on here in the [recently released] movie Love and Basketball? This isn't your first time playing an athlete. Were you looking for these kinds of roles?

OE: That's more of a coincidence. It just happened. When this last basketball flick came up, I was consciously trying to avoid that type of thing, but the film was hot, and it was like, "All right, well, let me just do it."

KB: How do you go about deciding if you're going to do a movie or not? Do you read the whole script through? Do you have to know who the director is. or who you're working with?

OE: I look at everything. Sometimes the fun part is not knowing who I'm going to be working with and seeing how the chemistry is going to work. I just dig the whole thing. Great scripts read like a good book, and it's like, "Yo, that's hot."

KB: Can you read a script and tell if it's going to be a good movie or not?

OE: Nah, because so much is out of your control. My job and my only power is when they turn the camera on. After that, it's all up to the director, the editor, the marketing, the this and the that.

KB: It's like how we play. Everybody has to do their own thing individually, and in the end it all links together. By the way, I heard you took a picture with a big old python. man. What the hell is up with that? You weren't scared of it?

OE: No. I'da sued if it had bit me.

Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant's debut album, Visions, has just been released. Omar Epps, photographed with his daughter Alyanna Yasmine and Freddie the Burmese python, wears a tank top by cK Calvin Klein.