Andre Benjamin continues to prove that he can do anything. He has had major success in music and has leapt into movies when many singer/actors get laughed off the screen. He's got his own clothing lines and now he's proven he can do comedy too. In Semi-Pro, he plays a legitimate prospect for the NBA stuck on an ABA team in the '70s.
CraveOnline: Who is your favorite professional basketball team and how do you like your chances this year?
Andre Benjamin: To be honest, it sounds crazy, but I’m not a big basketball fan. I’m more of a football fan. So I don’t know anything about who is good right now. I’m from Atlanta but the Hawks are playing pretty good right now. They are pretty good. They need new uniforms, but they are all right.
CraveOnline: What did you think of the 70s fashion in this movie?
Andre Benjamin: I thought they were pretty outrageous. You don't get a chance to walk around in those clothes everyday. Film is your chance to go back to that time. The '70s style is what it is. A lot of the stuff wouldn't work right now.
CraveOnline: How about the short shorts in the uniforms?
Andre Benjamin: They kept pulling them down. Actually we had to do two weeks of basketball training, so I went ahead and got it over with and I wore my shorts during the two weeks of practicing so I wouldn’t feel self conscious the day we were shooting, so I wouldn’t feel funny because Clarence didn’t care about the shorts, so why should I?
CraveOnline: Did you keep the coat?
Andre Benjamin: No, I didn't keep the coat. The material was hideous. It was in good shape though.
CraveOnline: Was that your own hair in that do?
Andre Benjamin: Mine was a wig but I used to have hair that big. I was supposed to get a wig but they tricked me. I told them I wanted to keep it but they took it.
CraveOnline: Was it ever intimidating to be with all those comedians improvising off the script?
Andre Benjamin: I wasn’t too intimidated. No, no, because when I had to audition for the film, I had to walk into a room and audition with Will [Ferrell]. So I guess once I got over that it wasn’t too bad. And then with music you freestyle a lot and you kind of just throw ideas out and when you read the script and want to make your character as real as possible, sometimes you just go off on a tandem and you keep going. And you’ve got film, why not? So keep recording it.
CraveOnline: How do you balance all your different careers like clothing designer, actor, and musician, and what motivates so much artistic divergence?
Andre Benjamin: It’s really what ever is really going on at the time and check which way the wind is blowing. I guess what drives it is just creativity. I just like to make stuff and if, at the end of the day, I can have something in my head and actually see it be produced, come to an end point, that’s the joy of it. It’s all creative-based. As long as I can be creating something or do something that can be cool, I’m good.
CraveOnline: There are a lot of great party songs on the soundtrack for this movie. What's your favorite party song? And it can't be one of yours.
Andre Benjamin: Favorite party song, this may sound really corny, but Cyndi Lauper, Girls Just Want to Have fun. It’s a great pop song. I mean, I don’t dance around singing it, but the production is like the best.
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