Playboy Interview: Bernie Mac

Some celebrities show up for interviews with an entourage. Bernie Mac shows up with medical equipment. After a hospital stay and three weeks flat on his back fighting a case of pneumonia, the comedian turned actor is having trouble breathing and is tethered by a tube to a nearby oxygen tank. A lesser man might have taken the day off. Not Mac. Although being linked to the tank hinders his body language and his energy level is low, Mac perseveres. When you've been through what he has, a bout of pneumonia is no big deal.

Mac grew up in the toughest of circumstances: living in poverty, rarely seeing his absentee father and suffering through the death of almost every family member he was close to while he was still young, including his mother, two brothers and his grandmother and grandfather. Angry and confused but focused on the lessons he had learned from his mother, he found a series of odd jobs in Chicago, including driving a Wonder bread truck, working as a cook and delivering appliances for Sears.

But through it all, he was funny. As early as elementary school he found he had a knack for telling stories and making people laugh. He took a while to focus, but eventually he tried his hand at comedy full-time. At first he met with only modest success, playing local clubs and theaters in Chicago. Then came Russell Simmons's Def Comedy Jam and the Kings of Comedy tour, with Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer, where he scored big-time with his streetwise and mostly scatological musings about men, women, sex and family--all liberally spiced with the word "motherfucker" and all based on his own rough background. That led to small movie roles and, finally, his own sitcom.

The Bernie Mac Show is in its fourth season, and Mac has been nominated twice for an Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series. The show, about a 40ish, childless comedian named Bernie Mac who takes in his sister's three kids when she enters rehab, is partly based on Mac's own life and his strong opinions about how children should behave.

The TV show opened the door to better film roles, and Mac appeared as Chris Rock's older brother in Head of State. He also played the deadpan retail security chief in Bad Santa, with Billy Bob Thornton, and took the Bosley reins from Bill Murray in the sequel to Charlie's Angels.

This fall, at the age of 46, Mac grabbed his first lead role, as a big-league hitter desperate to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Mr. 3000. He also returns as part of the neo-Rat Pack in Ocean's Twelve and will soon co-star with Ashton Kutcher in a modern-day retelling of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, currently titled Guess Who.

Contributing Editor David Rensin, who did our 20Q with Mac in 2003, met with the actor-comedian recently in Los Angeles as he began filming Guess Who. Reports Rensin, "Both at his house and in his trailer on the set of the movie, Bernie needed oxygen from his always-nearby tank. But Bernie was still Bernie--the man who can answer a simple question with a 30-minute story--and he wasn't going to let his health slow him down. He began the interview playing the host, not the patient."

[A] Mac: You want some water? You want some snacks? You like sweets? We got sweets. Okay, let's do it. [sneezes]

[Q] Playboy: You've been pretty sick.

[A] Mac: Yeah, I'd never been sick in my life before. Forty-six years of playing sports, humbugging, football, baseball, basketball, never had nothing broken. Never was in the hospital. I was hospitalized about 2:30 last Thursday morning, and after some chest X-rays at three they told me I got pneumonia. But I've been recovering real quick. Today I went to the doctor, and everything is going real good. I've been walking with this oxygen stuff sometimes. Before, I couldn't even walk across this living room. It was tough. Of course, the only thing you can do with pneumonia is what I'm doing--sitting down and talking to you. But that's okay. I figure if I wasn't taking care of myself, if I wasn't doing the proper things, I probably wouldn't be sitting here at all.

[Q] Playboy: That must have been scary. Your first book is called I Ain't Scared of You. Are you afraid now?

[A] Mac: When I was coming up I appeared on Def Jam. The comic on before me died a miserable death--all the comedians backstage were laughing and enjoying his failure. The audience was so hostile that when I got out there my adrenaline was pumping and the words just came out: "I ain't scared of you!" Then I killed.

[Q] Playboy: Is that your philosophy?

[A] Mac: Well, I'm not afraid to fail. Sometimes when you lose, you win. Sometimes when you win, you lose. It took me a long time to get to where I'm at, in my career and as a man. I was going through my trials and tribulations in life, and it gave me the strength to tackle things that have come my way.

[Q] Playboy: Still, something must scare you.

[A] Mac: Not being able to give my best. I get anxious about taking new material to the people. When I don't give my best it taunts me. It tears me apart. It's almost like cheating on a test: You passed, and everybody thinks you're great, but you know you don't know shit. Whatever success I've had, I always like to top it.

[Q] Playboy: Now you're trying to top the success of Ocean's Eleven with Ocean's Twelve. Which of your co-stars made you laugh the most?

[A] Mac: George Clooney. He's a practical joker. He can bust balls. You've got to watch yourself at all times. You open a door, you better make sure a bucket of water don't fall on you. George'll put gum in your drink after he's chewed on it. You better watch when you sit down, make sure the chair don't fold up on you and there ain't no tacks on it. He's a mofo. George is constantly needling you.

[Q] Playboy: Does he do that with everyone?

[A] Mac: Only with people he likes. Unfortunately, on the second movie George and I didn't spend much time together, but on the first one he'd hit me and I'd hit him right back. Then Brad would jump in. It was a free-for-all every damn day. Even Carl Reiner got in a couple of times. That was probably the highlight for me on Ocean's Eleven, talking to one of the gurus of the sitcom. He's awesome.

[Q] Playboy: A while back we asked if you'd formed any friendships on Ocean's Eleven, and you said you were too busy working to have hang time. Did that change on Ocean's Twelve?

[A] Mac: We hung. Especially that group. We hung as men.

[Q] Playboy: Meaning?

[A] Mac: We played poker, had cigars, had dinners all the time, parties. It was just a good time. Jerry Weintraub, the producer, might be a pain in the ass, but he really knows how to treat his actors. Top-shelf. We were the Rat Pack.

[Q] Playboy:Mr. 3000 was your first lead role in a movie. Why baseball?

[A] Mac: I love baseball. My uncle Mitch was on a St. Louis Cardinals farm team. My character, Stan Ross, is based a bit on Mitch. I also used Roberto Clemente and Rod Carew for my hitting. When I played I could always hit. They used to call me the Water Hose because I sprayed the field.

[Q] Playboy: And yet the movie is less a comedy than a challenge for you to show some acting range.

[A] Mac: I didn't want to do any buffoonery. I wanted it to be different, solid, but at the same time I wanted to be the Bernie Mac people know. The script had been around awhile and was given to much more successful actors than me: Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, John Travolta, Richard Gere. But it's all about timing, and it came to me at the right time. It fit me. I knew this guy. There was humor, but he wasn't just a funny man. Athletes are so doggone powerful and bigger than life that it seems they can't get ill or be hurt or emotionally touched. I wanted to go against the clichés, to reveal the chops of Bernie Mac. And I wanted to show a love affair from a minority's point of view, which is rarely seen.

[Q] Playboy: Rarely seen?

[A] Mac: Every time you see a black romance it's over-the-top. There always has to be extreme hostility between the sexes. He has to cheat. She has to show him how independently strong she is, not just as a woman but as a black woman. I wanted to stay far away from that. In the love scene between Angela Bassett and me, I didn't want you to see me stirring spoon with her. I didn't want you to see me knocking the boots. I wanted you to use your imagination and see the love. I didn't show you any skin. You saw Angela in her underwear, putting on her slacks because she had to go, and you saw me grab a sheet and chase her down the stairs. I wanted you to see that the roles were reversed.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever consider dropping the sheet as you walked back up the stairs--for comic effect?

[A] Mac: Nope. You don't want to see my backside.

[Q] Playboy: Much of your comedy is based on your own vulnerabilities and pain.

[A] Mac: The pain is not self-pity pain; it's a pain of strength. My humor comes from telling stories based on my life that everyone can relate to. What you see is what you get. There ain't nothing fictitious. I've never had anyone write my humor for me. I'm scanning, watching, something will happen, and I'll think, Man, that's funny. Goddamn, that's funny! I'm always watching and listening and laughing to myself.

[Q] Playboy: All joking aside, your family life was pretty rough.

[A] Mac: I never really knew my father. He was a smooth-dressing Gatsby who was never around. I met him maybe 12 times. I lost my little brother Howard when he was a few months old. I lost my mother when I was 15 and then my big brother, Darryl, a year later. Three years after my mother passed, my father died penniless, and I had to bury him. My grandmother and grandfather--who I found out after he died wasn't really my grandfather--raised me after that. At some point there were 12 of us in one home. We weren't all brothers and sisters, but we were very close, and close in age, so everyone thought we were--my uncle Mitch and his son Greg, my aunt Jackie, my aunt Evelyn and her kids, Tony, Kim and Vicky, who died of strep throat when she was 10.

I was born on 66th and Blackstone in Chicago. It was rat-infested. The city tore down that building and found us an apartment on 69th and Morgan, in Burning Bush. We had a bedroom in the front that I shared with my mother. My grandmother and grandfather had a bedroom, and there was one for Evelyn, Kim and Jackie. Mitch, Darryl, Tony and Greg slept in the rec room in two big beds.

[Q] Playboy: It sounds as though you were surrounded.

[A] Mac: Yeah. God took me on a ride. But my grandmother didn't want me to fall into self-pity. She hated that. She would always say, "The world doesn't owe you nothing. It's what you owe the world." I didn't really understand that then, but I do now.

[Q] Playboy: We assume that as a result you pretty much take Hollywood in stride.

[A] Mac: Hollywood didn't make me. I'm so far away from Hollywood it's unbelievable. Hollywood didn't know anything about me. When I got here they were afraid of me.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Mac: They said my personality was too powerful. When I read for parts in the early 1990s they said my presence was too strong and it took away from what I was trying to do.

[Q] Playboy: How much did that bother you?

[A] Mac: It made things tough, but I didn't let it bother me. I was taught to give my best, to raise my game. My grandmother always said, "Don't you come down. You let them come up to you." She also told me, "You keep doing what you're doing. If you do it from here [points to heart], it'll happen by itself." So I never really got upset. I never looked for anything from anybody. When I'd get turned down, that was great for me.

[Q] Playboy: Now that you've spent so much time on the West Coast, can you make fun of showbiz and get a laugh?

[A] Mac: You can, but some will say it's a rich guy cranking and moaning, so I don't really go there. My comedy has always been internal, personal experience. I don't talk about the TV show or Hollywood in my act. In fact, what made my comedy successful was that I stayed away from that kind of stuff.

[Q] Playboy: You don't find it funny or don't want to bite the hand that feeds you?

[A] Mac: Hollywood don't feed me.

[Q] Playboy: Come on. What about the TV show, the movies?

[A] Mac: Those are separate from my stand-up. With stand-up I'm the director, writer and producer. I can talk about whatever I want.

[Q] Playboy: What else is off-limits?

[A] Mac: I don't tell God jokes.

[Q] Playboy: The comedy business changes rapidly. How has it evolved since you began your career?

[A] Mac: Everything is micro-driven. Everything is fast. Hardly anyone studies the craft. Few have a style of their own. What used to make comedy so interesting to me was individuals who had their own style: Joey Bishop, Jerry Lewis, Dom DeLuise, Flip Wilson, Redd Foxx, Tom Dreesen, Tim Reid, Jackie Mason, Rodney Dangerfield. They went on Johnny Carson and did five-minute routines. Now everyone goes to the Aspen and Montreal comedy festivals. They have no following, no comedy base. I realize lots of them are just trying to get exposure, but when someone new gets a sitcom, the show doesn't last because the comedian's not ready.

[Q] Playboy: How did you know that you were ready?

[A] Mac: Let me tell you a story. When I was about eight years old I was clowning in class. The teacher said, "Mr. Mac, why don't you come up here and share with us, since you've got everybody laughing." I said, "Okay." I got up and did whatever I'd been doing. She said, "That's fine and dandy. Now sit down." That Friday we had recreational day, with art, music, stuff like that. The teacher, Miss Cochrane, said, "Class, I'm going to have Mr. Mac come up and tell us one of his hilarious stories, since he likes to tell stories." I didn't know it was coming, but I said, "Okay." I did about 30 minutes. Afterward she asked me where I got the story. I told her I did it off the top of my head. She said, "Don't lie to me." I said, "No, ma'am. I did it off the top of my head."

[Q] Playboy: Honestly?

[A] Mac: Never thought about them. Even today people ask me, "What you gonna do tonight, Mac?" I say, "I don't know." Give me 50 minutes and I can do two hours. Anyway, the next recreational day another class joined mine. The principal came too. Miss Cochrane said, "Mr. Mac, please tell the class another story." I said, "Okay." I did another 30 minutes. Later the principal asked me, "Where did you get that story?" I told her that it just came to me. The following week was the same thing. Afterward the principal said, "I'm going to put you in a district talent competition next month." She called my mother and told her. My mother asked me, "You want to do it?" I said, "Okay."

At the assembly I wore my one suit. My mama had cut my hair. I sat in the back playing with my little Army men, watching a girl onstage doing her thing and the audience going crazy. A few of my schoolmates were behind me whispering, "You're gonna freeze. Choke. You ain't gonna do it. You're gonna make us look bad." Miss Cochrane said, "Take your time. Just get up and do your story." "Okay." All of a sudden I heard my mother go, "Psst!" She said, "You be yourself. If you be yourself all the time, you'll never lose. Don't hear the voices." I said, "What voices, Mama?" She said, "You'll find out. Just don't hear the voices." I said, "Okay." Someone said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Bernie Mac." Behind me I heard, "Freeze, freeze, freeze!" I went up and said, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bernie Mac, and I'm eight years old. I'm here to tell you a story about how hot it was. Two hundred degrees. There was no water in the world. One guy had all the water and wouldn't share it with anybody. It was so hot the birds were dropping dead." I did about 30 minutes. I won. Backstage my sister was jumping up and down, but my mother just looked at me and smiled. She knew I hadn't listened to the voices. She said, "We're going to celebrate. What do you want?" I said, "Mama, can I have a hamburger, a cheeseburger and a shake?" She said, "Okay." I'm like that to this day. I just don't worry about things. People can put fear in you only if you let them.

[Q] Playboy: So if it wasn't because of fear, why did you spend years working at Sears and General Motors, being a fry cook and delivering Wonder bread instead of doing what comes naturally to you?

[A] Mac: Good question. Around when my grandfather died, I was living in a bad place, not in terms of harming others but of harming myself. I was irresponsible. I ran the streets, and my priorities were all messed up. I'd lost several apartments, furniture. I had to move in with people constantly. I couldn't hold a job, and I was the talk of the family. Like my mother and grandmother, my wife was one of the best people in my life, and I couldn't understand why I was always hurting people who loved me. I was tired of being a no-good son of a bitch who called himself a man but was just a grown boy. Living check to check, blaming people and mad at other people's fortunes.

[Q] Playboy: What turned it around?

[A] Mac: My mother died when I was 15, and I couldn't feel anything. I was blank. I faked the tears when she passed because I thought that was the right thing to do. I mean, people are looking at you, and you're supposed to be crying. I finally cried for real in 1991 at a comedy club. It was summertime. I had three shows and got about eight standing ovations. At two in the morning it was over, and outside it was raining cows and pigs. I had a few beers, and I was on a high. I kept saying, "Thank you, Lord." I'd finally given myself over to doing only comedy, and I felt the transformation. I felt myself coming around. I was really dedicated to what I believed in. My family life was coming together, and I appreciated it.

I left the club and drove down Lake Shore Drive. I lived on 107th and King Drive. A church song was on the radio. I got so full of emotion that I pulled over. I got out of the car and started walking on the beach. I was drenched. Then I just started screaming my mother's name and telling her I was sorry. For the first time I legitimately cried. I got home about 5:30 or six in the morning. The rain had stopped. My wife ran out as soon as I pulled up and said, "Bernie, I worried to death!" She saw my eyes were red like fire. My head was hurting, I'd cried so hard. She looked at me, and I looked at her. She said, "Come on in." I said, "I'm sick of this shit." That's all I said. That was the turning point.

[Q] Playboy: How tough was it for you when you finally decided to put all your energy into your career?

[A] Mac: I remember everybody telling me, "The only way you can make it is to come to L.A." I'd saved $400 or $500, and a friend who worked at United Airlines got me bootleg tickets. I'd never been on a plane in my life. I took my wife. It was our first vacation, too. Before I left Chicago I did my homework. I made all the calls--Laugh Factory, Improv, Comedy Store.

I was supposed to perform at the Comedy Store. Mitzi Shore, the owner, never gave me a minute of her time--but no hard feelings. I got there at seven p.m. to go on about 7:45. They bumped me. They said, "So-and-so came in. Go eat something." Somebody else came in; they bumped me again. No problem. "You'll go on at nine-something." They bumped me. Richard Pryor arrived in a wheelchair. He went on at 10:30. No problem. I'm watching Richard Pryor. My wife's tired: "When are we going to go home?" I didn't want to be a pest. I'm trying to follow the rules. I ask the guy, "Can you give me an idea of what time you think I'm going on?" "Who are you again?" I said, "My name is Bernie Mac. I was here for seven o'clock." "Oh yeah, we'll let you know." Eleven o'clock, 11:30. "We're gonna put you on at 12:30, man. You're gonna go up, okay?" Rhonda said, "Can you take me home? I'm tired." Okay. I ran Rhonda home. Came back about 12:15. I said, "I'm going on at 12:30." He said, "Ah, we bumped you, man. You'll go on around one o'clock." Okay. I sat down. They bumped me again.

[Q] Playboy: Was the unflappable Bernie Mac finally getting pissed?

[A] Mac: Nope. A black guy came to me and said, "Hey, man, you still wanna go up, man? You want to go on around 2:30?" The place was about empty, maybe two or three people in there. I said, "Yep." I went up. Took 25 minutes. He came onstage and said, "He was pretty funny, ladies and gentlemen. What's your name? Bernie Mac? That was pretty impressive, man." I sat down. I didn't say nothing. He came over and said, "That was pretty funny, bro." I said, "Okay." He said, "Come tomorrow, man. We'll see what's up." I said, "Sure." I got home around three-something. I didn't want to wake my wife, but she rolled over in bed and said, "You go up?" I said, "Yeah." She said, "What's wrong?" I said, "Rhonda, they asked me to come back tomorrow, but I'm not going. Next time L.A. calls me, they're gonna come to me. I want to go home." I went home.

[Q] Playboy: Discouraged?

[A] Mac: I figured if that was what I had to go through to make people laugh, it was bullshit. But I never got discouraged.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get The Bernie Mac Show?

[A] Mac: It was great timing for me. Had I waited another year my show would have suffered because of all the reality shows that came out, all the instant ratings getters. I was hot, coming off The Original Kings of Comedy, and I found a network, Fox, that needed something. I'd been on shows before that had been canceled, and I'd been pitched shows--stupid shit with me playing an architect or something like that and having kids who look nothing like me--but I'd always cut them off and said, "Not interested." When I went in with this one I figured the only way I could keep the networks from tampering with me and my premise was to play myself. It's hard for a network to tell me how to play myself. I'm 46 now; I've got 46 years of experience of who Bernie Mac is. So I pitched myself, knowing I'd have the power to be more creative and dictate the details I already knew--because my show is based on true stories from my life.

[Q] Playboy: On The Bernie Mac Show there's no laugh track, and you break the fourth wall and speak to the audience. And although you're really Uncle Bernie to your TV kids, you're a different kind of TV dad. How difficult was it to get Fox to agree to everything?

[A] Mac: Not difficult. In fact, in four years I've had no problems with Fox except that it keeps changing the time slot without putting out any publicity about it. I know it's the nature of the TV beast and it's not personal. Put me on whenever, but tell people!

[Q] Playboy: In his book America Behind the Color Line, Henry Louis Gates writes that on your show you aren't working against racial stereotypes as much as against TV stereotypes. True?

[A] Mac: Television is full of stereotypes because they all follow each other. Whatever works, okay, let's all jump on it. Some authentic shows get through, but then greed sets in and they're copied. You see one story on CBS, and when you turn the channel you see the same story.

[Q] Playboy: If you could, which classic sitcom would you revive and star in?

[A] Mac:The Andy Griffith Show. People forget that Andy was once a stand-up comic. They don't realize how secure he was. He had to be. How else could he have had Don Knotts, Opie, Gomer, Goober, Aunt Bee, Clara, Floyd and Ernest T. Bass and let them all get off? That was brilliant.

[Q] Playboy: And unlike many contemporary TV dads, Andy inspired respect. Why are today's TV dads so hapless?

[A] Mac: Cheap laughs and easy jokes. Look at Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, Dick Van Dyke. The fathers were the breadwinners, the strong individuals. When Wally and the Beaver had a problem, Ward would go upstairs and give them everyday lessons. Now it's the quick joke. You've got guys in charge of shows who probably went to school for chemistry, and now they're executive producers.

[Q] Playboy: When are you going to do some more stand-up?

[A] Mac: Thirty dates next spring, when I'm finished with the show for the season. After The Original Kings of Comedy and the show and the movies, the anticipation is just where I want it. But it kills me not to have touched the mike for so long. In the past, if I felt something, if I'd get an idea, I could go onstage two days later and work it out. Haven't been able to do that.

[Q] Playboy: How do you keep up the comedy chops?

[A] Mac: I'm a great listener, a great observer. It looks like I'm talking or laughing to myself, but I'm just working new ideas and using my tape recorder.

[Q] Playboy: Now that you're in the mainstream with the TV show and movies, will you keep working blue?

[A] Mac: I have to be myself. It's comedy. It's jokes. It's what got me here.

[Q] Playboy: Which comics influenced you the most?

[A] Mac: Red Skelton used to tear me apart. At the end of his show a tear would roll down my cheek when he'd say, "God bless." He did all his characters with his heart. Richard Pryor taught me how to talk about myself. Redd Foxx taught me how to speak the audience's language. I also learned from Bill Cosby, about how to handle myself in business.

[Q] Playboy: You once delivered appliances for Sears. Do you still shop there?

[A] Mac: Sure. Depends on what I'm looking for. I don't have hang-ups like that. You know how people say, "This is a Johnny Gucciani shirt I'm wearing"? I've never been into that. I am into suits, though. My grandfather always told me a man should look his best at all times, so I promised myself that if I could get a hand on a dollar I'd wear suits. I get mine tailor-made.

[Q] Playboy: What's the first thing you got when you had the money to get anything you wanted?

[A] Mac: I got my wife a real wedding ring. Before that she had bullshit. I might have just found that motherfucker. Then I bought her a nice condo downtown and started a college fund for my daughter.

[Q] Playboy: How many big-screen TVs do you own?

[A] Mac: Several.

[Q] Playboy: How big is too big?

[A] Mac: I've got an 80-something-inch screen. I also have a movie screen. I love movies. I saw At Close Range again the other day, with Chris Walken and Sean and Chris Penn. Man, I love that movie. Sometimes my wife and I will watch three or four movies a day. I'm a home cat. I get up at seven or eight o'clock. I work out from 10:30 to 11:30. I shower, steam--I don't like saunas--put my clothes on. At two I go to lunch. After that I go to the office, go to the gun range, hit some golf balls--whatever I have that day. Six o'clock, seven, I come home and eat. After that I watch a movie, watch me another movie. If it's raining, I might watch three movies.

[Q] Playboy: We hear you also collect guns.

[A] Mac: For 20 years now. I have Glocks, .45s, Berettas, over-unders, Remingtons. I like the marksmanship and the discipline that it takes to be a gun owner. I like the machinery, breaking it down. Being able to take it out, clean it and put the spring back in is even more fascinating than having the gun.

[Q] Playboy: How'd you get into it?

[A] Mac: Being black and in the neighborhood. You had to have something to protect your home. The first thing I had was a revolver, because it's safe. Everyone in the house knew. My daughter knew. I kept the revolver in a box with a lock on it. Once I had the revolver I went to the government and registered for a firearm. Then I practiced shooting. After seven years I graduated to an automatic. My father-in-law taught me how to handle it.

[Q] Playboy: Has anybody ever pulled a gun on you?

[A] Mac: Yes, several times.

[Q] Playboy: What did you do?

[A] Mac: Obeyed. That was the neighborhood I lived in. You became used to it. We used to hear shooting. We'd wait 20 minutes and then walk to the store. I'm not proud of it. It's sad.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever have to pull your revolver out of the box?

[A] Mac: Never had to and I hope I never will.

[Q] Playboy: You're also passionate about golf. What's the best golf joke you've ever heard?

[A] Mac: The guy said he had to hit the ball 275 yards up the middle and a little to the left on the 13th hole. For the approach shot he had to go through this little gate. He shot the ball, and it went through the gate, hit a tree, came back, struck his wife in the temple and killed her. He didn't play golf for a while. He came back about six months later and played the same course. Thirteenth hole, 275 yards, right down the middle and a little to the left. Approach shot he had to go through the little gate to get to the green. Same shot. He stood there. Everybody got silent. Someone asked if he was okay. He said, "Yeah. Last time I double-bogeyed this hole."

Golf will change your life. That game is something else, man. But it's fun. All of a sudden you'll hit the perfect fucking shot to keep you coming back. I love the camaraderie. I love playing all these beautiful courses. I love the aftermath--the beers, the cigars, the good food. I like meeting good people. I don't deal with toxic waste. When I get a chance to play golf or go on a boat with good people, take the boat out and put some lobsters on the grill, get the ice-cold beer and the cigars--that's heaven here on earth.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think cable TV has helped or hurt comedy?

[A] Mac: I don't know about comedy, but cable ruined comedy clubs. Def Comedy Jam helped ruin them.

[Q] Playboy: Russell Simmons, in his book, says that whites who watched the show got to see how angry black people were and that the anger was over white people not knowing that black people are as good as they are. True?

[A] Mac: Whatever way he sizes it up, that's his thing. But it took away. I learned about putting a routine together from the pioneers I mentioned earlier. Then everything became hostile. That's not comedy.

[Q] Playboy: Clearly you know your own mind and aren't afraid to say so. How tough is it to stay that way in a business that often labels entertainers who think for themselves as difficult?

[A] Mac: [Laughs] I have a problem with this when I do interviews, because for some reason people don't get it. It ain't arrogance. I'm not vain. I'm just trying to be the best I can be, and I count on myself, my own instinct. I listen to what others have to say, but in the end it comes down to me. That's not arrogance; that's reality. I'm not living for approval. But I know some people might dislike me because I stand alone. I get it sometimes: antisocial, know-everything, not for the people. That does hurt me. But in the big picture, so what? My family, my wife and daughter all understand me. It's not like when I was growing up and had to go to school with you even though I never liked you. Today I love everybody, but there are a few people I don't like. I don't like their ways, how they treat people, their personality. But that's not standing off; that's my choice about choice. Do I want to have coffee with you? No. Do I want to call you and say, "Let's go smoke a cigar"? No. In the end I get most of my pleasure from being creative. When they leave my show and say, "Bernie Mac is something else! Man, that son of a bitch is funny"--that's my applause.

[Q] Playboy: You got that reaction from being in The Original Kings of Comedy. Would you do another?

[A] Mac: No, I'd do my own. The Original Kings of Comedy was great, but I don't think there's room for a part two.

[Q] Playboy: As we speak you're making Guess Who, with Ashton Kutcher, a remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Why gamble on redoing a classic?

[A] Mac: I didn't want to do an actual remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, because I have too much respect for it. So we flipped it, and it worked. I'm in the Spencer Tracy role. Ashton plays Sidney Poitier's part. Zoe Saldana is my daughter. My wife is Judith Scott. I love bringing something different to the party. Coming off Mr. 3000 and Ocean's Twelve, I wanted to show people my chops, show them substance and quality and that there's more to me than they thought.

[Q] Playboy: But it's still about your daughter bringing home a boyfriend of a different color, only this time he's white.

[A] Mac: It's not just about her bringing home a white guy; it's that there's so much going on that weekend--I'm having a 25th anniversary party--and she didn't tell us. Plus, the guy has problems. It's a love story about four people, not just him and my daughter.

[Q] Playboy: You have a hit TV show, a growing movie career, two best-selling books and a big stand-up act. Now that you've made it, are you tempted to just play it safe with your stardom?

[A] Mac: No, though that's sometimes what others want you to do. A lot of people, when they get on a successful ride, they change their style. They hear the voices, and they let everybody on the outside--people who know everything about absolutely nothing--tell them what they need to do and how they need to do it. Besides, I'm not a star, and I don't want to be a star. Stars fall. I'm an entertainer, a performer. I'm an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job. I'm a comedian, a clown, and that's fine with me. I'm the guy who takes people away from their problems for an hour and a half or two.

[Q] Playboy: When you're gone, what would you want people to say and remember about you?

[A] Mac: I want them to say that Bernie gave his best every damn day. I want them to say that he brought quality and substance to everything he touched. It's the way I feel about Marvin Gaye and Earth, Wind & Fire. They never cheated their fans. That's my elation. That's my applause. That's bigger than dollars and cents. I want to be the best I can be--first a better man, then a better husband and father, then a better friend. Then I want to be a great associate. After that I want to be the best entertainer in the world--in my world. Then I'll walk off like Johnny Carson and Flip Wilson. You'll see me no more. No more interviews. I'll get on my boat and sail away. I'm going to live my life. I'm gone.

I'm not a star, and I don't want to be a star. Stars fall. I'm an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.

"Cable ruined comedy clubs. Def Comedy Jam helped ruin them."

"I'm not living for approval. That's not arrogance; that's reality."