Mike Epps and Mo'Nique in Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins David Lee/Courtesy of Universal

How was working with Mo'Nique?
Mo'Nique was crazy. Mo'Nique is a great girl. Mo'Nique is a great person. Mo'Nique is very, very funny and interesting, integral to work with. It was just great to work with her.

You said you were from a big family. Were you the only one in entertainment?
Yeah.

Is your family supportive?
They love it. They love everything about it. They love it because they can borrow a little money from me.

Have you ever had a moment where you went home and the people there had to remind you that you weren't a celebrity?
You can't control what people say. They're subject to say anything, especially if they are coming from a position where they don't know what that lifestyle is. Sometimes a person will just walk up to you and I don't even get mad because they don't even know. Especially the people that get up and go to work everyday. People walk up to me and tell me all the time, "Yeah, man. I saw you in a picture with Halle Berry." I ain't never seen Halle Berry.

Are you still doing stand-up?
I still do stand-up. I'm always touring around the country. I actually do stand-up because it helps me in the movies. When I do stand-up, it really, really complements me when it's time for me to act in a movie. For actors, going to acting class is their rehearsal. Stand-up is my rehearsal for my acting. When you get an actor and a stand-up on a movie set, there's two different timings.

Mike Epps and Michael Clark Duncan in Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins David Lee/Courtesy of Universal

How was it working with a group of all comedians?
The timing was impeccable. It's a lot different from working with actors. Actors have different timing.

How much of it was ad lib and how much of it was on the page?
Me and Mo'Nique are both comedians and what we do for a living is we go out on the road and we crack jokes. I think that really helps us to be able to ad lib in movies. Very seldom do you run into directors who really understand how to use a stand-up comedian in a movie in a transformation way and Malcolm was pretty cool with understanding us on that. He knew when to let us riff and when to stay on the page.

If we didn't do stand-up, it would be a whole different type of timing for us. But, working with actors like Michael Clark Duncan, who is an actor, but hilarious. He had the timing that we had. But it was a different type of timing, it wasn't a stand-up timing. It was a funny timing.