David Alan Grier starred in “A Soldier’s Play” on Broadway — but at home, he’s been waging his own battle of the bulge.
“I want to lose 132 pounds!” the comedian and actor joked to Page Six.
The “In Living Color” star says that, like a lot of people, he’s over-indulged during the COVID-19 lockdown and, while he may not need to lose more than 100 pounds, he still has to drop about three dozen.
“For a good nine months, it was not why lose weight, it was why get up? Why take off these basketball shorts? I feel like it’s finally time, it’s spring, I’m about to plan things. That’s the most hopeful thing I can do,” he explained.
The 64-year-old actor jokes that he’s cut out “everything, all the good stuff,” in his quest to drop the pounds. But one way he still enjoys food is by whipping up extra special meals for his 13-year-old daughter.
“Last week I cooked these braised short ribs in two different kinds of soy sauce,” he rhapsodized. “I sat down to her (and said to her), ‘Let me smell your breath! Eat slowly!’”
Grier is thrilled that he’s up for his fourth Tony nomination for his role as Sergeant Vernon C. Waters in “A Solider’s Play.”
It’s a show that he has a long history with, having appeared in the original 1982 off-Broadway production where he shared a dressing room with a couple of other unknowns — Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson.
He also appeared in the 1984 film adaption called “A Solider’s Story.”
Grier is also appearing in Jamie Foxx’s upcoming Netflix comedy series “Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!“
The show was created by Foxx and inspired by his relationship with his daughter, Corinne. Grier plays the Oscar winner’s father despite only being eleven years older.
“You’re supposed to be eleven years old,” Grier kids. “That is the perfect age range of a TV dad. Television is a Disneyland of contradictions.”
Being reunited with Foxx after starring together in “In Living Color” has been “so much fun.”
“It’s kind of like band members where you know each other,” he explains. “I’ve known Jamie for over 30 years. It’s been awesome, so easy, so familiar. We egg each other on. He kept telling me every day, ‘You can say whatever you want, bring whatever you want, do whatever you want.’ I’m like, ‘Okayyy.’ And here we are. We got into such a groove.”