Brandon T. Jackson Getting Serious About Stand Up at Gotham This Weekend

Brandon T Jackson Headlining Gotham

Brandon T. Jackson returns to New York City to headline here for the first time as an adult. He’s played a lot of clubs, and plenty of bars throughout the city, but tonight and this weekend, he’s headlining Gotham, and it’s a something he’s ready and excited for.  He was born in Detroit, lives in LA but he thinks of himself as a New York comic, because that’s where he first started accumulating his comedy skills. So headlining here, at this point in his life, is an important moment.

Brandon has some amazing credits behind him, with roles in films like Tropic Thunder and the Percy Jackson series, and there’s Hulu’s Deadbeats, and Californication to name a few. This summer he’ll be adding two more big credits to his IMDB, a co-starring role in the NBC comedy Mr. Robinson, with Craig Robinson, and the title of Executive Producer on two series, that will air on two different networks.

We asked Brandon about the new NBC show, which he calls a really sexy young show, with a great tone to it. “It reminds me of Steve Harvey Show, School of Rock and Fresh Prince of Bel Air, mixed,” he told us, and he’s just loving working on the show. Doing the live performances in front of a crowd every week, is amazing, he said. “I love coming to work every day. It’s a blessing. I’m on a studio show, and to me that’s a big deal.”

Brandon described his character on Mr. Robinson as a young out of work musician, who plays lead guitar….and he’s a ladies man. “While Craig is working in the school his younger brother is just kind of pretty much having girls over and chilling and he’s growing. He’s 25,” he said. “So he’s this guy whose just like ‘yo, I’m working, I’m writing music from home.’ He’s very serious about the band, Nasty Delicious and he’s trying to get Craig to go to the next level in his career while Craig is trying to balance being a teacher and a rock and roll star. And it’s hard.” Mr. Robinson starts airing on NBC on Wednesday nights starting April 5th at 9:00pm.

Jackson’s also executive producing. He sold two shows, at the same time, to NBC Universal that are connected in a very unique way. “It’s called Comedians of LA, and its a docu-series about comedians on the road. We get five comedians and track their stories about where they are in their careers,” he said. But the twist is, there are actually two shows. One show films the comedians in their homes, working on their comedy, interacting with their families, and the plan is to air it on the Oxygen Network. The Oxygen series will also focus on what its like for their wives and girlfriends, to live with someone performing comedy, and include what happens at home while the comics hit the road. The other side of the story will be told on the Esquire Network, following the comics as they hit the road, and in the clubs. Brandon will star in both series, as well as executive produce along with his partner Lemuel Plummer. They haven’t started shooting yet but Brandon told us the comedians are all on board. “We’ve signed all our comedians,” Jackson said, “But I’m not allowed to tell you the cast yet. But they’re very high level comedians. They’re people we all know and they’re all different they all have a different perspectives.”

Even with his film career, his tv series and his docu-series all in the works, Brandon told us that it’s stand up is an important priority for him right now. He started in stand up, in his early teens, and kept up his stand up to some degree throughout his career, but it was three years ago, that he decided to put all his energy into upping his game on stage. “Three years ago I went back on the road,” he said. “No one remembered my stand up. I did a lot of movies, but okay I’m grown now and I wanted to step back into stand up.” Putting together a comedy special was an important goal, so he knew he needed to really work, but it wasn’t easy. “It was very rocky at first. People expected me to be the character in the movie. People see you on tv they want you to be that guy on tv,” he said. And he knew that to train, he had to go back to real clubs. Making an analogy to boxing, he said he realized he wasn’t training in the right gyms.

“I’m training in the cute gyms” he realized, and needed to take things more seriously. “Comedy is not a glamorous sport.” So while he was taping Deadbeats for Hulu, he said he went back to the hood to train. “I was so sleepy in every episode cause I was out every night doing stand up in five different places. I’m in Queens, and Jamaica, I was in the deep hood, I’m in the hood training and figuring out what it is,” Brandon said.  “This is funny here, this is not funny here, so I was finding my voice, trying to see where I could stand. Now I’m coming…three years later, finally saying okay this is what I want to talk about, this is who I am. And that’s why I’m excited about Gotham. I’m playing New York the right way. I want people to say wow I didn’t know he was that funny. That’s what I”m hearing. That’s the buzz. I don’t know industry wise, but people wise. They’ll come back to see me so its a blessing.”

You can see Brandon headlining tonight, Friday and Saturday at Gotham Comedy Club in New York City. Click here for tickets, and watch Brandon on Mr. Robinson, starting August 5th on NBC.

 

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