Actor Woody McClain talks marching band origins with Jalen Rose

Woody McClain is his name!

But since he starred in the BET 2018 miniseries “The Bobby Brown Story,” fans regularly address him as the “Every Little Step” singer.

That made the actor bristle until the great Jamie Foxx (who I’m praying for) gave him some advice.

Woody recalled that Jamie said to him, “I come from ‘In Living Color.’ So my first role was Wanda … You got to embrace it in order to move on … You got to take it.”

“I felt like that was a great conversation for me to have,” Woody told me on this week’s “Renaissance Man.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to cope with people not calling me by my name. … It’s been helpful, though.”

Getting called Bobby is really a credit to Woody’s incredible portrayal of the singer.

“When I first met Bobby, he walked in, he was like, ‘Hell, yeah. He got the bow legs.’ He’s like, ‘You got to get the gap,’” said Woody, who wore a mouthpiece to mimic the singer’s famous tooth gap.

“Bobby was so cool to work with, man. If anybody has ever met Bobby Brown, you know how down-to-earth he is. He’s so full of love. You feel the energy, man,” Woody said.

Everyone in showbiz is feeling Woody’s energy these days. He can dance, act, tell jokes and seemingly master any discipline thrown his way.

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, he wanted to be on television like his aunt Katrina McClain, who won Olympic gold medals for basketball and and is in the sport’s Hall of Fame.

He was also fascinated by Eddie Murphy, because his mother went to school with him and she was such a fan.

Then Nick Cannon ended up being a big force in Woody’s life.

He saw Nick’s movie “Drumline,” decided he wanted to be in marching band and picked up the tuba. He went on to get a full ride to Florida A&M University.

“Man, that was everything,” he said. “I didn’t want to go to college. I just wanted to finish high school. [But the] HBCU experience, that changed my whole life … As I always say in interviews, shout out to Nick Cannon.”

While in college, Woody saw how girls flocked to dudes who could dance, so he taught himself by watching YouTube videos — and ended up working with Chris Brown.

He then decided he wanted to act. He’s now working alongside Mary J. Blige in one of my favorite shows, the 50 Cent-produced Starz series “Power Book II: Ghost,” and in a soon-to-be-released Mel Gibson movie, “Desperation Road.”

He credits his mastery of myriad fields to his first love.

“I’m so happy that I was able to be a part of a marching band,” he told me, “because it felt like it was so military.

“It gave me a lot of discipline within when it came to acting. …

“It was nothing for me to just stay home and study.”

But he was also an early adopter of social media, using it as a springboard for bigger things.

In particular, his dance and comedy videos blew up on Vine, the now-defunct platform for posting short clips.

“Social media has been a blessing, because at the time when I started doing it, it wasn’t oversaturated,” Woody pointed out. “I feel like it really opened up a lot of doors for me.”

Woody recognizes how unorthodox his trajectory has been — but that’s what makes his story so intriguing.

“I mean, honestly, my path is just my path. I can’t tell you exactly how to do it that way because I didn’t have a formula. I’m just out here living and breathing in the moment and it happens for me,” he said, adding that it’s “hard to have those conversations because people think I’m like gatekeeping or something.”

He certainly isn’t gatekeeping when it comes to spoilers for “Power.”

“Season finale of ‘Power,’ expect a lot of people not to make it. Oh, yeah. Oh, just leave it like that. Oh. It’s like the Red Wedding on ‘Game of Thrones.’

“That’s what I love about the show.”

And that’s what we love about Woody.

He’s not afraid to go there.

Detroit native Jalen Rose is a member of the University of Michigan’s iconoclastic Fab Five, who shook up the college hoops world in the early ’90s. He played 13 seasons in the NBA before transitioning into a media personality. Rose is an analyst for “NBA Countdown” and “Get Up,” and co-host of “Jalen & Jacoby.” He executive-produced “The Fab Five” for ESPN’s “30 for 30” series, is the author of the best-selling book “Got To Give the People What They Want,” a fashion tastemaker and co-founded the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, a public charter school in his hometown.