The photographer asks him to sit still. Ever the picture of relaxation, Orlando Jones lounges in his oh-so-regal Ritz Carlton chair as if it were a Laz-E-Boy recliner. "Okay, so do you need serious Orlando? Happy Orlando? 'Cause I can do happy." With Jones flashing his "Make 7-Up Yours" smile, the photographer laughs in spite of herself.
He is the most unlikely movie star you could imagine. "Fame is a bad thing," he says, "to chase, anyway. If you're in this business for the fame, you've made a mistake. All I care about is if it's funny. If I'm not gonna pay eight dollars to see one of these movies," he says, pointing to the huge poster for his latest film, Say It Isn't So, in the background, "I shouldn't expect you to either."
The new film is produced by the Farrelly Brothers (Kingpin, Something About Mary), and Jones is proud of both the film and the part that he plays in it. In typical Farrelly Brothers fashion, Jones describes his role as "a double-amputee pilot who fell of the face off the earth in 1976."
"I like the Farrelly Brothers' work because they create characters who people usually pity and have them succeed. In Kingpin, they made Woody Harrelson a bowler who loses his hand and yet remains a great bowler. It's the same sort of thing.
"But you know, nobody knows what makes people laugh. You only know what makes you laugh. For instance, I don't know what you guys find funny," he says as he points to the group of college reporters huddled around him. "I just throw stuff out there that I think is funny and hope that you do too."
"So you didn't learn anything in a comedy class?" one of them asks.
"Everybody I knew who went to a comedy class... uh... sucked," he replies. "You have professors telling kids that they aren't funny unless they do comedy [the professor's] way. And that's just not true. What do they know? Who are they to tell some kid that he won't do anything until he's 30 or 45? They're lying. You can tell them Orlando Jones said that!" he laughs. "Whatever that's worth."
Success may have snuck up on Jones, but he is the last person to take himself too seriously. "My name used to be 'MadTV.' People would see me on the street and yell, 'HEY! MADTV!' Then it was 'the 7-Up guy.' It was after The Replacements that people actually said, 'Wait a minute, I've seen you before... what's your name?' Now it's 'ORLANDO!'" he laughs again, "No 'Jones,' just 'ORLANDO!'"
It's been a strange trip, from North Carolina to 7-Up commercials to headlining major films like this summer's Evolution. "I was a chemistry major at Charleston University. No, really," he says as he gets looks of disbelief. "I wasn't exactly a model student. It's one thing to sleep through lecture - you can always get the notes later - but when you sleep through sailing class... that's lazy.
"Eventually, my parents took me aside my senior year and asked me what I was going to do. And I said, 'Uh, I don't know.' In North Carolina, unless you get incredible grades, your prospects are basically 'May I take your order please.' So I wrote some scripts for TV and tried out at an ad agency. A few rejection notices later, I landed a job on A Different World. That was my break."
He remained a writer for a long time, while occasionally performing in a few commercials ("I did one for Food Lion... you know, big stuff!"). Then he heard about a casting call for a new show called MadTV. "I was tired of writing jokes for only other people, so I quit my job on the Sinbad show and tried out. Talk about a fluke. I was totally unprepared. I finish my little piece and there's complete silence. From the back of the room, I hear Quincy Jones yell, 'Do you do any impressions?' And I said, 'Yeah.' He yells back, 'Like?' And I said, 'Uh... um... damn.' I froze. I finally stammer, 'Why don't you throw stuff out, and I'll do it.' So he threw out some names and I started going off, making it all up, and after five he said, 'I don't need to see anymore. You're it.'"
He smiles and shakes his head at that. "And at the time I almost didn't want to accept the job, because I wasn't going to be able to write on the show. Eventually they did let me write, but there was a lot of back and forth."
Jones also answered the question that many had been wondering about: yes, he does come up with most of the 7-Up ads himself. "Again, I told them I wasn't going to do it unless I could have a lot of input. Originally, they wanted the slogan to be '7-Up: What's up?' or '7-Up: Drink up?'" He pauses to arch his eyebrows in disbelief. "I said, is there a choice here? I finally got them to accept the 'make 7-Up yours' tagline, and it took off. While they write the official script for each commercial, I still sneak stuff in. The line, 'looks like two Christmas hams,' wasn't exactly in the script."
Even though his fame has skyrocketed since the ads, he plans to continue doing them through the New Year. "As long as it's funny," he repeats, "As long as it's still funny."
Jones offers advice for those who might not be incredibly funny, but still yearn for success.
"Exploit what resources you have. You don't have to move anywhere to be funny. There are funny people everywhere: driving trucks, working in offices, your parents, they could be anywhere. Ivan Reitman [of Ghostbusters and the upcoming Evolution] told me that the first film he made was called Naked Stripper Killers or something like that. He borrowed a camera and $5,000 from his dad, squeezed it into a film festival, and the rest is history."
Someone asks, "So that's what you did?" He looks the reporter straight in the eye and replies, "No, I made a pact with the Devil." The room cracks up, and he continues, "The only problem is, you can never have sex again. I'm still trying to deal with that."
