"Guess Who" is Back? It's Bernie Mac!

In Theaters March 25

Bernie Mac is back to talk about his latest film, Guess Who, costarring Ashton Kutcher. But he had some pretty rough going for a while as illness almost kept him from finishing the film. Things started to get bad when he was in Europe shooting Ocean’s 12.

“I was shooting Ocean’s 12, I was shooting this, I was shooting a commercial, I was shooting the television show,” Mac said. “I hadn’t had a break in eight years. I hadn’t played golf in three. I hadn’t done anything social in three years. I was over in Europe, I was over in Amsterdam, I was over in Paris, flying back here, doing that. Then I caught pneumonia. Double.”

Things got more complicated when Mac’s prescribed medication made him even sicker. “Then they gave me this medicine called methotrexate that’s good for pneumonia. And the doctors are really high on this medicine. There’s one out of 100 that it don’t fit to. I was the one. And it gave me toxicity.”

A consummate professional, Mac tried to continue working. “I was working still because I didn’t know what the heck was going on. I’m still doing 16-18 hours a day. And all of a sudden, I wrapped with Ocean’s 12, and I had a scene walking from here to the door, and [I got winded]. I felt something’s wrong. I didn’t pay no attention. I kept working. I worked the entire day.”

Finally, a late night bout of weakness in simply walking to the bathroom prompted Mac to call the doctor from his television show, who met him at Cedar Sinai hospital. “They ran EKG, everything was great, they did everything. They did everything. Heart strong as a board, they asked me to donate it. And when I went in for the X-rays, I found out the guy, the technician said, ‘Mac, you got double pneumonia.’ Now, personally I’m thinking double pneumonia is a cold or something affiliated with a cold. It’s not. My whole immune system shut down. And rightly so.”

Now that he has achieved success with his films and television show, Mac can go easy on himself. But to a man with such a strong work ethic, a little easy is still more than most people give. “Blame [mother] Loraine McCullough for my work ethics and my word, giving of my word and saying I’m going to do something when people depend on you. I hate to let people down. I was like that in sports and I was like that in comedy. I was like that at work. When I worked General Motors and stuff like that, when I say something, I mean it. And I hate to disappoint. I hate. Blame her for instilling that work ethic.”

Guess Who, a comedy remake of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner came to Mac when Ashton Kutcher developed the idea with Mac in mind. Mac’s team was also developing a remake idea and they combined forces.

“The reason I wanted to do this movie is because when I was a little boy, everybody used to call me Little Sidney,” Mac said. “There were only four blacks that ever took the time, meant anything to minority, especially black. And that was Diane Carroll, Sammy, Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier. The best comedy in the world for me is Uptown Saturday Night. Let’s Do It Again, Uptown Saturday Night, you cannot put nothing in front of that for me. But Sidney was selective. He was collective in terms of what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. And that respect for Sidney, I don’t want to disappoint. When I came into doing this, when they asked me, I told them. I said, ‘I will not make this movie buffoonish.’ That speech, I hate to do that damn speech Spencer Tracey did with Katharine Hepburn. I hate to do that damn speech where Sidney Poitier told his father. I ain’t that good. That was deep. Sidney was deep. Katharine Hepburn said nothing but said it all.”

Once satisfied that the project would be respectful to the original, Mac was happy to make a movie about fathers, daughters and their boyfriends. Race became a minor issue because Mac felt that children, the target audience for the film, already see beyond color.

“I think it’s us that’s talking about it. I go by playgrounds and stuff all the time and those kids ain’t paying us no damn attention. Little kids play together so much and laugh and joke and rub snot on each other and they ain’t paying us no attention. It’s us.”

Guess Who opens Friday.