Hyattsville native Jermaine Fowler gained national attention recently after appearing alongside an all-star lineup as Eddie Murphy’s son in “Coming 2 America.”
In a one-on-one interview, Fowler told the Hyattsville Wire that he still stays close to his childhood friends, telling jokes on a group chat, playing digital UNO and joining online games on his PlayStation.
“We try to find ways to keep in contact and stay in the loop of what’s going on with our lives,” he said in a Zoom interview from his home in Los Angeles. “It’s almost like I didn’t really leave Maryland sometimes.”
Fowler’s 2015 stand-up special, “Give ‘Em Hell, Kid,” includes a number of routines about growing up in Hyattsville, including a scandalous moment at the public library and his job at a local Quizno’s.
He told the Wire that he was upset to learn that they library was being torn down because it’s where he would go to read books on how to break into comedy and borrow comedy albums. He also lamented the loss of woodsy areas near the Plaza Towers apartments where he grew up, but he was excited to see how the Arts District was developing.
Fowler’s comedy career started with a routine at a talent show at Northwestern high school which he said went so badly the judges cut him off.
“I was doing jokes that were really dirty, and the judges and the audience didn’t like them,” he recalled, saying that even though he bombed, he says he was “addicted” to comedy afterward. “I was hooked right after that show at Northwestern — whatever that was. That was an incident.”
Fowler said the arts program at Northwestern introduced him to teachers and fellow students who played a key role, mentioning Andre Lee, whose classes he still visits; a drama teacher who introduced him to improv and Monty Python; and a Japanese teacher who supervised an anime club where he met a lot of his friends.
He spent a lot of time as a kid watching VHS tapes of Eddie Murphy’s stand-up, so he said it was fun getting to know him while writing with his son, Miles. But he said it was a much different experience on the set filming “Coming 2 America” alongside Arsenio Hall, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan and Wesley Snipes.
“It was truly mesmerizing to see him be ‘Eddie,'” he said. “At times I forgot that we had a movie to film and had to snap out of it.”
The experience of making the movie really hit home, however, when he saw the cover of Essence featuring him, Murphy and co-star Arsenio Hall. Because both of his parents worked as hair stylists, he grew up reading the magazine.
“It was a big part of my growing up, so to see myself on the cover — and not just on the cover but with two of my favorite comedians — I’d be lying if I didn’t say I got choked up,” he said. “It was wild to see that. I still can’t believe it.”
You can watch “Give ‘Em Hell, Kid” and “Coming 2 America” on Amazon Prime.
Click here to watch the interview on Zoom with the Hyattsville Wire.
