Mike Epps

18 Oct, 1970 | Indianapolis, Indiana

Actor

Biography

Michael "Mike" Epps is an American comedian and actor. Personal life Epps grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he shared a house with five siblings and his mother. He was a troublemaking class clown who admitted to spending four months in a juvenile center after a prank involving Super Glue. Epps entered a stand-up comedy contest at an Indiana club called Seville\'s. His success on stage gave him the courage to strike out on his own and move to Atlanta where he began making a name for himself at the Comedy Act Theater. The owner of the club suggested Epps move to New York to build his act, and within a week, Epps caught a Greyhound to Manhattan; he was 21 years old. While breaking into the city\'s conventional comedy clubs proved difficult, the Def Comedy Jam phenomenon stimulated an underground black comedy scene in which Epps excelled. Epps has been married to Mechelle McCain since July 2006. Epps and Mechelle (now credited as Mechelle Epps) met on the set of the 2003 film The Fighting Temptations where he played the role of Lucious and she played the "Girl in the Nightclub." Career By 1995, Mike Epps ended up on the Def Comedy Jam tour and starred in two of HBO\'s Def Comedy Jam broadcasts. With a stop along the way to appear in actor Vin Diesel\'s directorial debut Strays (1997), Mike Epps was well on his way to becoming one of the bigger names in stand-up. He appeared in an episode of The Sopranos in 1999, the same year the comedian was cast as Ice Cube\'s co-star (effectively, Chris Tucker\'s replacement) in the Friday sequel Next Friday. Epps headed for Los Angeles, where he invited Ice Cube to catch his stand-up set. Impressed, the rapper-actor-producer asked Epps to try out for the part of Day-Day, which he landed after weeks of auditions. Opening at Number One on the box-office charts, Next Friday was a breakthrough for the new actor, who was already familiar to much of the audience from his stand-up work. Epps played the ineffectual Day-Day, a timid, stressed-out character stalked by his obsessive ex-girlfriend (Tamala Jones) and her brutish younger sister Baby D (Lady of Rage). Day-Day also smoked a lot with his co-worker (Justin Pierce). Later that year, he had a cameo in DJ Pooh\'s 3 Strikes and supported Jamie Foxx in the action comedy Bait. Mike Epps began 2001 with a voice role in the family comedy Dr. Dolittle 2 and finished the year with a featured role as comical pimp Baby Powder in How High, starring hip-hop artists Redman and Method Man. Epps played the bumbling thief to Ice Cube\'s bounty hunter in the action comedy All About The Benjamins in 2002 and again re-teamed with the rapper-actor-filmmaker in the continuing Friday saga\'s latest entry Friday After Next (2002). Other notable movie roles include The Fighting Temptations with Cuba Gooding, Jr. and R&B/Pop diva Beyoncé Knowles, Guess Who (the 2005 remake of Guess Who\'s Coming to Dinner with Bernie Mac), Resident Evil: Apocalypse, its sequel Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), the 2005 remake of The Honeymooners with Cedric the Entertainer, and Roll Bounce (playing one of two garbage men along with Charlie Murphy). Mike Epps recently had a small part in the song A Bay Bay by Hurricane Chris doing the Rick James move. He also hosted a Jim Jones and Skull Gang album entitled Jim Jones & Skull Gang Present A Tribute To Bad Santa Starring Mike Epps.