Mike Epps On Playing Richard Pryor In HBO’s ‘Winning Time’: ‘I Don’t Care If I Did Good or Not’

Mike Epps has been campaigning to play legendary and influential comedian Richard Pryor for years now and still hopes to do so in the future.

Appearing on a recent episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Epps spoke about his fascination with playing Pryor and finally getting the opportunity to play him in the HBO series, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.

Kimmel immediately brings up the role Epps has been salivating to play when the comedian tells Kimmel that he finally got to play Richard Pryor.

“They gave me a little taste of Richard Pryor. I played a little taste of Richard Pryor and it was amazing,” Epps responds. “Just for my name to even come up with Richard Pryor’s name, I don’t care if I did good or not. You know what I mean? I’m just happy my name came up.

“Yeah man, Richard Pryor, he’s such an idol to everybody. I wish I could have met him, man, well, I did meet him, but I wish I could have met him, met him and hung out.”

Epps goes on to explain that he met him when Pryor’s wife invited him to their house.

In 2014, according to Uproxx, Epps was on board to play the role of the iconic comic. Director Lee Daniels tweeted the news to the world at that time. When it was initially reported, there were many other names attached to the role, including Marlon Wayans, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Michael B. Jordan, and Nick Cannon. But evidently, Epps impressed both Daniels and Oprah Winfrey (who was slated to be one of the producer.

According to The Hollywood Reporter last year, the movie project was put on pause after filmmaker Daniels, who was the producer, exited the project titled Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said? It was being backed by the Weinstein Co.