E-mail a friendDaryl Mitchell; Michael Strahan
airdate September 24, 2009
Daryl "Chill" Mitchell first gained attention as a member of a rap group before transitioning into acting. He's continued a successful career following a motorcycle accident that left him a paraplegic. Super Bowl champ and Fox NFL Sunday co-host Michael Strahan retired from the NFL in '07, after 15 seasons with the New York Giants. Since then, he's held hosting duties for several series, including Spike TV's Pros v. Joes. He also donates hours to numerous charities. They team up as co-stars of the new Fox sitcom Brothers.
Brothers stars talk about growing up. (2:06)
Full interview (12:41)
Daryl Mitchell; Michael Strahan
Tavis: (Laughs) Daryl Chill Mitchell is a talented actor whose TV credits include "Veronica's Closet" and "The John Laroquette Show." This fall he's teaming up with former NFL pro baller Michael Strahan.
Daryl Chill Mitchell: No, he teamed up with me.
Michael Strahan: Oh, come on, man.
Tavis: Oh, see - for a new comedy called "Brothers." The show premieres this Friday night at 8:00 on Fox. Here now, a sneak preview of "Brothers."
[Clip]
Tavis: Ouch. (Laughs) How do you say that to Strahan and he doesn't get slapped? How does he say that without getting slapped?
Strahan: You want me to show - I'll - I'll - (Laughter)
Mitchell: Yeah, the guy's got a hook.
Strahan: You better hold my hand down.
Mitchell: Look, this is "Tavis Smiley Show," y'all. (Laughter) Let's do this show with some dignity today.
Strahan: Okay. You saw when we came up here the first thing I asked him, "Are you going to behave today?"
Tavis: Yeah.
Mitchell: Yo, it ain't on me, man. It's on this dude.
Tavis: But not his teeth, though (unintelligible).
Mitchell: No, look, man.
Strahan: Oh, man.
Mitchell: He started that, dude. (Laughter) He the one going to come into the writer's room, start cracking these little jokes. "Oh, yeah, they say all these little gap-teeth jokes when I'm on the football field. They were saying, 'You know what? If your gap wasn't so wide you'd be able to catch that receiver.'" (Laughter) So you started that.
Strahan: No, that wasn't it. They said, "If your gap wasn't so wide you'd have more sacks because when you're free-running to the quarterback they can hear the whistling sound coming through." (Laughter)
Tavis: Ah.
Strahan: "So the quarterback knows you're going to get him, he moves out the way."
Mitchell: He started it.
Strahan: But I'm in there telling stories and they take these stories and they throw it into the show, and I'm going to tell you what, on the show you can't have ego, you can't - if you have an imperfection, it's what it is because we're brothers on the show and that's how we are off the show. We get on each other.
Tavis: And that was pretty hard about the cards in the wheel, though.
Strahan: You know what, that's nothing, man. (Laughter) This cat here, on the show, Tavis, he gets the girls, he gets all the love. Mama loves him more. I mean come on, that's not realistic.
Mitchell: But you do go on dates.
Strahan: Yeah, I go on dates, but I get no love. I get the assumed love.
Mitchell: But the date don't last.
Strahan: You get the (unintelligible).
Mitchell: The actual love, huh?
Strahan: Yeah.
Mitchell: Be nice, be nice.
Tavis: In real life you are one of what, 12 kids, Daryl?
Mitchell: Yeah, my mother has five, my father has 13.
Tavis: Right, okay - wow.
Mitchell: Yeah, it's a (unintelligible) family.
Tavis: I ain't mad at your daddy, okay.
Mitchell: Oh, the "Soul Train" line, it was serious at my house. (Laughter) It was a serious "Soul Train" line.
Tavis: I could see that.
Mitchell: Oh, it was serious.
Tavis: And Stray, you are the baby.
Strahan: Yeah, of six.
Tavis: Of six. I'm going to lean back because I want to ask this question but I don't want to get slapped when I ask this.
Strahan: I'll lean forward so I can get close to you. (Laughter)
Mitchell: Dude, don't (unintelligible).
Tavis: What was - yeah, I'm way over here. What was your nickname when you were a kid?
Strahan: Oh, they called me Bob.
Tavis: They called you Bob?
Strahan: Yeah.
Tavis: But your name is Mike.
Mitchell: What's Bob?
Strahan: It had nothing to do with the gap in my mouth, man.
Tavis: What's Bob? What's Bob?
Mitchell: What's Bob?
Strahan: When I was younger, okay, I was a little heavy, a little chunky, so they said, “Bob.” I used to cry, like, "What, my name ain't Bob." "Booty on back." (Laughter) My booty's so big I can reach for my wallet like that. (Crosstalk) (Laughter)
Mitchell: See, I saw the special but I want him to say it. They're going to say I did it.
Tavis: (Unintelligible) I just wanted to ask the question. I didn't want to jump in.
Strahan: But you know what, by admitting these things and just living my life with a three-inch space in my mouth, I'm inspiring people.
Tavis: Yeah.
Strahan: Yeah. (Laughter)
Mitchell: Inspire them -
Tavis: Let me ask you seriously, I want to move off of this, why did - because there are people who are born with a gap. I have a brother, my brother, my father; there are gaps in my family. You have been - you've lived long enough to have the capacity to have fixed that if you wanted to. Why haven't you, seriously?
Strahan: I could have gotten it fixed as a kid. My parents were too cheap, and as an adult, I'm too cheap.
Tavis: That's the - (laughter).
Strahan: No, you know what it is? (Laughter)
Mitchell: I was about to concur. (Laughter)
Strahan: (Unintelligible) Hey, my dad's going to show up, now.
Mitchell: Oh, all right, all right.
Strahan: But you know what I think it is? I'm comfortable with who I am, so, and it's a part of my identity, so to fix it I feel like I would be like everyone else. I don't think I could look in the mirror and not see it and be comfortable. So I decided, I made a conscious decision. Hey, it's me. I'd gone through all the steps to possibly get it done and decided not to do it.
Tavis: As you well know, there are a lot of actors, and I ain't going to call no names, a lot of folk in this town who had gaps and became actors and said, "This ain't going to work."
Strahan: Yeah, they got pretty.
Tavis: Yeah.
Strahan: Yeah, and nothing's wrong with that if that's the way you feel. But I'm comfortable. If they say they want to put a cap in it for something, I'll put a cap in it. But every day I'm going to walk around like this.
Tavis: Cool. Tell me about this show, how this came to be. Obviously you're brothers, but give me - how did this come to be?
Strahan: You know what? I met Chill at a basketball game, Nets-Knicks game years ago, and I went up, introduced myself, and we just had a nice conversation. And he tried to - I said, "I know who you are, I read your story." And I told him that night, "If you need anything, let me know."
Mitchell: Here we go.
Strahan: Years later, somebody put us in touch and it was like that, like chemistry like that, and it'd be cool to work together.
Mitchell: That's what I tell people all the time, this was fate. It was fate.
Strahan: It'd be very cool to work together. And he's an actor, I had - I'm selling Snickers bars and Vaseline and Subway sandwiches. I haven't been on a show like this. But working with him has made it so much easier for me in just developing this whole thing with him, like, this is our personality, this is who we are, make something around it. And it's worked.
Tavis: How seriously are you taking this, Michael, and I ask you that because if you're going to approach this with the same dedication and discipline you did football, then you're going to be okay at this. But how - this has kind of fallen in your lap to some degree. How serious are you taking it?
Mitchell: No, you've got to ask me that. You've got to ask me that.
Tavis: Let me ask that. Chill, how seriously is Michael - yes.
Strahan: Yeah, how seriously am I taking this?
Mitchell: The worst. I mean - no, it's so funny, I tell people all the time whenever you forget your line, ask Mike. It's scary. It's like dude, how do you know my line and your line and Carl line? But it's like - because he talks about, "I studied those play books so my memory is sharp." And that's one of the main things.
But it's about feeling comfortable. The key to acting is not acting. When we first started the pilot, Mike was like, "Yo, I've got to get home and get in this mirror, start working." I said, "Mike, don't mess with nothing. Just be, and let the world see you, man." His personality's too big.
Strahan: I was just going to look at myself. I thought I looked - (laughter).
Mitchell: No, I was like (unintelligible). (Crosstalk) Don't do that. Don't - don't do that, man. If you really look at yourself -
Tavis: The Carl that you have referenced two or three times in this conversation would be -
Mitchell: Who? Apollo Creed.
Strahan: Carl Weathers.
Tavis: Apollo Creed, yeah.
Mitchell: Carl Weathers.
Tavis: Who plays the father.
Mitchell: Yes. I tell people all the time, man, how many times can you brag about Apollo being your dad? (Laughter) Imagine going to school and talking about, "My dad can beat your dad," I'd be like, "I'd be right back." (Laughter) "I'll be right back."
Strahan: And to this day, Carl looks even in incredible shape.
Mitchell: Incredible shape.
Strahan: And as for me, I'm extremely - I'm into it. I don't do anything halfway. I didn't play football halfway, I don't do NFL commentary halfway, and I don't do this show halfway because I realize it's me, it's Daryl, it's Carl, and it's CCH Pounder.
Now, when you put those names out there, who's the one person that they're going to look at and go, "Hm?" It's me. I don't want to look bad. I don't want to hold them back. And every day I sit and I watch them do scenes when I'm in a scene with them or when I'm not, and I study them so I can learn and try to soak in as much as possible, because I'm fortunate to be in this situation. I realize that.
Tavis: To your point earlier that you can sell Snickers bars and you can sell Subway sandwiches and Vaseline, et cetera, but this is not your forte, this is not your first gift, first skill, first love, for that matter. Why take the risky Stray? Why take the risk? Because you know people are going to say, "Eh, Strahan should have done this." Why take the risk?
Strahan: If I listened to that I would have never played football. I would have never been a commentator. I would never do this show. Why listen to somebody else who's not with me every day? They don't know me. They don't know what my ambitions are.
My ambitions are just to work hard and do stuff that's challenging, and make myself proud.
Mitchell: I like the fact when you say that, yo, people only think because you're a football player you only do one thing.
Tavis: You're limited, yeah.
Strahan: Yeah.
Mitchell: That's why he's like, "Yo, no," and he's setting out to prove them wrong. I'm telling you, he'll prove them wrong, man.
Strahan: And that's the thing. Everyone thinks you know what? He's a football player, that's all he can do. And you kind of get put into that box and people don't want to let you out. They almost feel like oh, they sprinkled the good juice on him in football, don't sprinkle any more after that.
Mitchell: Right, right, right.
Strahan: If there was an actor who could play football, hey, man, come on. If you can do it, I welcome you to do it.
Tavis: I could have started our conversation here, but since y'all were cracking up so tough I didn't even get to it. Here we are now, about out of time, and I still ain't got the storyline. What's the back story, what's the premise of the series, Chill?
Mitchell: Well, the story is this. Me and Mike is brothers, he's a football player, retired; I'm the brother who had an accident. And believe it or not, I was the one that was supposed to go pro.
Strahan: I don't believe it.
Mitchell: But then he wound up going pro, but I taught him how to play football.
Tavis: Right. (Laughter)
Mitchell: So now it's like I kind of hang it over his head to try to make him feel guilty to help me out. So I run a sports bar that I started in my name. It was mine. He think I built it off of him, but I didn't. No, I made it off me. (Laughter) So it's my show, it's my restaurant.
Strahan: So long story short, I come home because Mom summoned me home to check on Dad, but really I really don't want to be there. I feel guilty that I'm successful and my brother's not. I bought a big house, a Bentley, but at the end of the day that's all I have because I had a business manager who loved my money more than I did.
Tavis: Ooh.
Strahan: Yeah. So now I'm stuck at home, trying to help - my brother and I are trying to help each other out in the restaurant.
Mitchell: Why you got to be stuck? You just (unintelligible) be home
Strahan: Because I don't want to be there. I'm used to being on my own, man. I'm a star in New York.
Mitchell: Tell the story, man. (Laughter)
Strahan: So I'm stuck at home with a brother who obviously - I love him but I just don't - can't get along with him.
Tavis: Yeah, I see this.
Strahan: Carl plays our father, who basically just wants to stay out of Mom's way, and CCH is an amazing - plays our mother, who basically runs everybody.
Mitchell: Yeah, it's funny, because Carl's character walks this tightrope because he can't fall out of the fellowship with the boys, but he can't fall out of love with Mom. So any time, he'll agree with us up to a point and then he goes (makes noise). Like, "Dude." So
Strahan: He left us hanging, man.
Mitchell: He leaves us hanging all the time. (Laughter) But it's fun, man. It's a family show, man.
Strahan: A family show.
Tavis: Chill, speaking of family, every time I see you I am always amazed, and I suspect that since you're human like all the rest of us, you have good days and bad days. But every time I see you on the other side of this accident you are laughing, cracking jokes, you are - how do you do this every day?
Mitchell: Yo, man, I tell people all the time, man, laughter is the best medicine in the world. I tell people "Yo, if you ever feel like crying, start laughing first. Then cry and then end the cry with a laugh." Laughter is the best medicine, man, and that's what got me through all this.
Especially - because the funniest person out of all of this is me. I laugh at myself every day, because something will happen and I'll just be like, "I cannot believe I did this." (Laughter) "Now, I can't believe I just went to lean over to get this can of soda, all I had to move was two more inches, and I wouldn't be on this floor." (Laughter)
Yo, I am cracking up myself, and I sit there and just get the soda, drink it, and laugh. Because you got to laugh, man. That made it through the whole - my whole rehab, man. I just was in there cracking jokes, man. And then I would find people that was there and supposed to be helping me out, "My boyfriend, Chill, he just be hanging." I'm like, "Girl, I'm trying to get help, you over there want me to give you advice, make you laugh." (Laughter) "I just came in here because I just needed to laugh today." So that's the key, man. Laughter is the best medicine, man.
Strahan: And that's how the set is. The set is funny.
Mitchell: Dude.
Strahan: You come down, nothing - we get on each other.
Mitchell: Tavis, I'm telling you. (Laughter) Once you leave this stage and you come to our stage?
Tavis: I think I'll hang out with y'all for a couple of days.
Mitchell: You in trouble.
Strahan: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Mitchell: I'm going to let you sign the disclosure before you get there (laughter) because you're doing right here (unintelligible) he grew up Pee Wee in the locker room, junior high, locker room, high school, locker room, college, locker room, NFL, locker room. So you know he got jokes, and they don't know when to stop. So he be taking it easy on us.
Strahan: I had to learn how to defend myself, man, all the gap-tooth jokes?
Mitchell: This dude is the worst, man. (Laughter)
Strahan: The best gap-tooth joke was there's a sign on my right tooth with an arrow that points to my left tooth that says, "Next tooth, one mile." (Laughter) That right there - that right there was hey, if you can't learn to laugh at that one -
Tavis: I'm going to leave it right there. This show, as always, is unscripted, and if you think this is funny then check out "Brothers" on Fox, starring Daryl Chill Mitchell and Michael Strahan.
Mitchell: There you go, see? He said my name first, Mike. You heard that, right? That's it.
Strahan: Yeah, right. He's just being polite.
Mitchell: There you go. (Laughter)
Strahan: (Unintelligible) further away.
Back to September 24, 2009