WAYANS
Now starring on ABC’s Happy Endings, Damon Wayans Jr. credits the “strict” household his comedian/sitcom star dad ran with giving him the tools to be successful. His father did the title character from his 1995 comedy Major Payne “and then just stuck to that character for the rest of our childhood,” Wayans, 30, says with a laugh. Best advice from his dad: “Comedy isn’t brain surgery,” Wayans recalls. “It’s either funny or it’s not funny. The key to being funny is knowing what’s not funny so you can avoid it.”
Scottish actor Alan Cumming, 47, whose eclectic career includes a one-man Macbeth stage show, a Smurf and a TV drag queen, surprised even himself when he joined the CBS drama The Good Wife. “I’d never played anyone in a suit in an office,” he says. “I’m known as ‘helmet head.’ They put so much gel in my hair that there must be a hole in the ozone layer above Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where we film the show.”
Contributing: Gayle Jo Carter, Nancy Mills, Brian Truitt
