Marlon Wayans Is Comedy Royalty. His Next Move May Shock You.

Suit, shirt, and tie by Ralph Lauren Purple Label.

Marlon Wayans has done comedy, drama, horror, comedy-horror, drama-parody, and whiteface. He’s stepped out of the shadow of perhaps the most famous family in American comedy while still working with them. Now he’s the star of the Jordan Peele–produced movie HIM. After nearly thirty years of steady, often wildly popular work, 2025 might be the year of Marlon Wayans. So how did he get here, now? “I don’t know, man,” he says. “I just work hard.”

HIM is the story of Cameron Cade (Tyriq Williams), a young man raised on football, now in the position of replacing his idol, the legendary quarterback Isaiah “Ze” White. In a desert training facility that evokes an Equinox built into James Turrell’s Roden Crater, the two test their bodies, bare their souls, and maybe go to literal hell. HIM is Any Given Sunday multiplied by Satan, powered by what would have happened if Walter and Jesse on Breaking Bad had turned their attention to creatine.

“I saw a cut the other day,” Wayans says, “and my manager told me: ‘That performance is unhinged.’” This assessment is right on the money.

Marlon’s explosive, layered work as Ze is the movie’s rapidly beating heart. Ze is a god contemplating mortality; Marlon shows you all the shades. “You feel bad for the guy a little bit, and he’s doing crazy things, and he’s jealous and insecure, and he’s got a sense of humor.” Whether Ze is the villain is up to you to decide. “I just know I worked my ass off and left blood on the dance floor every day.”

Much of that work by the formerly (and famously) scrawny Wayans happened in the gym. He put on around twenty pounds of muscle to play Ze, not an easy thing for a man to do in his fifties. “Coming out of quarantine, I had that belly, like everyone,” he says. He hired a trainer, who immediately got to work transforming Marlon’s house. “I had a room in the back, and he said ‘What’s this?’ I said, ‘An office.’ He said, ‘No, we’re changing this, it’s a meditation room.’ ” Which now it is, replete with red-light therapy bed. The trainer never let him rest, kept him moving, and Marlon ate it up. “It was me owning the character, doing the work it takes to be great.”

Like the characters at the center of HIM, Marlon, fifty-three, was raised in a family that expected success. In 1990, his older brother Keenen Ivory Wayans created, produced, and starred in the seminal Fox comedy show In Living Color, remembered as much for its alumni as its sketches. “Keenen is a legendary man,” Marlon says, “and we’ve all been so blessed to have had his tutelage in terms of mentality. I remember J. Lo—she was a Fly Girl on the show—and he said, ‘No, you’re more than a dancer—you’re a brand.’ Jim Carrey was a funny guy nobody believed in. Keenen said, ‘You’re a movie star.’ ”

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Keenen brought some of his Wayans siblings into the show: sister Kim, brother Damon, and later the youngest boys, Shawn and Marlon, stepped up to join the main cast. “We were known as the little brothers on his coattails, and he said, ‘You’re Black men in this industry, and if you want to make it, you have to be an unstoppable, undeniable force of nature. Learn to be writers, learn how to sell your own things, do it all.’ ”

After In Living Color, Shawn and Marlon created, produced, and starred in the WB sitcom The Wayans Bros., then the Scream-eviscerating Scary Movie franchise, and then, of course, White Chicks. “Oh man, when we did that movie, it got panned, we got killed.” He smiles. “And now, twenty years later, it’s a classic.”

Even when Wayans was working on all these broad comedies, he was testing his limits. He was in White Chicks in 2004 but that same year worked with the Coen brothers on The Ladykillers. After giving the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise the Scary Movie treatment in 2016 (Fifty Shades of Black, naturally), he played Aretha Franklin’s abusive husband in the biopic Respect. But his performance in Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 Requiem for a Dream is still a heartbreaking standout. “I had to audition five, six times for Darren to really see me as Tyrone,” says Wayans. “But I’m not just this crazy, funny physical actor from the WB—I’m theatrically trained. Comedy was just something I was born in.”

Upending other people’s expectations about him fuels Wayans. “I’ve always wanted to have a career where they go ‘What do you do with a guy who can do everything?” he says. “Where you trust him and believe him in whatever role you put him in, whether it’s slapstick comedy, or something like Requiem, or like HIM.”

Now, for a huge percentage of HIM’s target audience, Marlon won’t have the comedy baggage he had in 2000. Many won’t know about his stand-up or his producing or his famous family. HIM will be an introduction to Marlon Wayans. He’s not overthinking it. “I’m just a doer. I don’t spend my time to strategize. I just work so hard, and I work to just be . . .” he pauses, thinks about it. “Me.”

And if this younger generation does not know broad-comedy Marlon Wayans, they will soon learn. He and Shawn have wrested back control of the Scary Movie franchise, and a sixth installment will drop next summer. In the meantime, he stays on the road as a stand-up. Older brother Keenen is now semiretired and wants to hang out a bit more, but Marlon took the notes too well. “He’s like, ‘Why you got a show on a holiday weekend?’ And I’m like ‘Ain’t no holidays, brother.’ 

“You assign me greatness, I’m gonna get it.”

Story by Dave HolmesPhotographed by Micaiah CarterStyled by Chloe HartsteinGrooming by Jenny Sauce using Orveda Skincare and OribeSet Design by Michael SturgeonTailoring by Yana GalbshteinVisual Director: James MorrisEntertainment Director: Andrea CuttlerVideo Director: Amanda KabbabeVideo Senior Producer: Brian Murray-RealDirector of Photography: Alvah HolmesAssociate Cinematographer: Jay AguirreVideo Producer: Ali Buchalter

Video Editor: Jeff Sharkey