Celebrity Online NewsOnline Celebrity Gossip and News

Mike Epps extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

Michael E. "Mike" Epps
Born	Michael E. Epps November 18, 1970 (1970-11-18) (age 39) Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, comedian, rapper
Years active	1997–present
Spouse(s)	Mechelle McCain (2006–present)

Michael E. "Mike" Epps (born November 18, 1970) is an American comedian, actor and rapper, best known for playing Day-Day in the films Next Friday and Friday After Next.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Personal life 1.2 Career 2 Filmography 3 Other appearances 4 External links

Biography

Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, into a large family, Epps' natural comedic ability was encouraged at an early age, and he began performing standup as a teenager. He moved to Atlanta where he worked at the Comedy Act Theater, before moving to New York City to star in Def Comedy Jam in 1995. His first major film role came just two years later when he starred in Vin Diesel's Strays, a dramatic portrayal of relationships and drugs. In 1999, he made an appearance on the HBO mafia series The Sopranos.

In addition to his aforementioned film work with Ice Cube, Epps had several other feature-film appearances. In 2000, he was featured in Bait, starring Jamie Foxx and David Morse, and in the jail-comedy 3 Strikes. He performed the voice of Sonny in Dr. Dolittle 2, starring Eddie Murphy, in 2001. As he gained more recognition, his comedic talent began to blossom, as demonstrated in his two 2002 features: Kevin Bray's All About the Benjamins, an action-packed comedy, and the sequel-to-the-sequel, Friday After Next, in which he starred as Day-Day.

Epps hosts the 2009 BET Hip Hop Awards.

Personal life

Epps married Mechelle McCain in 2006. Epps had met her while filming the 2003 romantic comedy The Fighting Temptations (in which they appeared alongside Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyoncé). McCain had a minor, non-speaking role in the film as Epps' character's girlfriend. They have one son.

Career

By 1999, 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.

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., 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. He has also made a song called "Trying To Be a Gangsta" with Pooh Bear.

He also has a song entitled "Big Girls" which came out in 2008. It was originally recorded by rapper Bow Wow and featuring Yung Joc. The song is currently on iTunes and can be found on his album Funny Bidness - Da Album which was released October 27, 2009.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2000	Next Friday	Day-Day	Main Role
	Bait	Steven "Stevie" Sanders	Supporting Role
	3 Strikes	Space Cowboy	Minor Role
2001	Dr. Dolittle 2	Sonny the Bear (voice)	Supporting Role
	How High	Baby Powder	Supporting Role
2002	All About The Benjamins	Reggie "Reginald"	Main Role
	Friday After Next	Day-Day / Old Man	Main Role
2003	Malibu's Most Wanted	Rap-Battle Host	Uncredited / Cameo
	The Fighting Temptations	Lucius	Main Role
2004	Resident Evil: Apocalypse	L.J.	Main Role
	Still 'Bout It	Robert "Bobby" Ray	Video
2005	Guess Who	Cab Driver	Uncredited / Cameo
	The Honeymooners	Edgar "Ed" Norton	Main Role
	Roll Bounce	Byron	Minor Role
2006	Something New	Walter	Supporting Role
2007	Talk To Me	Milo Hughes	Supporting Role
	The Grand	Reginald "Reggie" Marshall	Supporting Role
	Resident Evil: Extinction	L.J.	Main Role
2008	Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins	Reginald "Reggie" Jenkins	Supporting Role
	Hancock	Criminal	Cameo
	Open Season 2	Boog the Bear (voice) (replacing Martin Lawrence and Chris Williams)	Main Role
	Soul Men	Duane Henderson	Minor Role
2009	Next Day Air	Brody	Main Role
	The Hangover	Black Doug	Supporting Role
	Janky Promoters	Jelly Roll	Main Role
2010	Lottery Ticket	Minister	Filming
	Liberty City: The American Dream	Unknown	Pre-production

Other appearances

• Pimps Up, Hoes Down (1999)
• All About The Stunts (2002)
• Gangsta Nation (Westside Connection music video) (2003)
• 106 & Park top 10 Live (one episode) (2005)
• Letter to The President (2005)
• Def Comedy Jam (five episodes, 1995–2006)
• Inapporiate Behavior (2006)
• Why We Thugs (Ice Cube music video) (2006)
• What You Know (T.I music video) (2005)
• Host 2009 BET Hip Hop Awards (2009)
• I Don't Know Y'all (Young Dro music video) (2009)

External links

• Mike Epps at the Internet Movie Database