Jalen Rose and Deon Cole talk ‘The Color Purple’ and comedy

Deon Cole is a rock star of comedy.

The award-winning actor and stand-up comic has been in shows such as “Black-ish,” films such as “Barbershop,” and is soon to steal the show in a breakthrough dramatic role in “The Color Purple.” 

But, the Chicago native’s career of making laughs — one that dates to the 1990s — almost never happened. Deon was a late bloomer, to say the least.

“I was like, way out of college and high school. I’d never been a real funny dude. That’s why comedy was never on my radar,” he told me on “Renaissance Man.” “I used to think comedians were just pie in the face, just always on. Then, I started noticing other comics who were ‘in the pocket’…like George Carlin and Ellen DeGeneres.”

Still, it took something extra to finally break Deon out of his comedic shell — a $50 bet from a friend to get him onstage. 

“It took me a while to see what my friend was talking about. One day I was like ‘alright let’s go’… I couldn’t get [onstage] for three weeks. Then I finally got on and was like ‘oh, got it.’ ”

Since that fateful night where Deon “got it,” he’s never let go. Lately, he’s been branching out from comedy with a more intense role in the 2021 film “The Harder They Fall.” Deon will continue to pursue drama in “The Color Purple” alongside Halle Bailey.

Of course, the way Deon — who has also been in commercials as the Old Spice guy — found out he got the role is comedic gold in itself.

It all began one night in NYC when he was seeing “MJ: The Musical” with close friend and actress Danielle Brooks. After the show, she kept telling Deon how excited she was to see him in person again — he could tell something was on her mind.

Eventually, Brooks, who plays Sofia in “The Color Purple,” told Deon that he had been cast.

In reality, Deon’s management was still negotiating for the part and his dear friend accidentally spilled the beans on the entire thing.

“Then about two days later, I called my manager and just told them the conversation we had … My manager said ‘Yeah, we have been talking to them for a while. Hey, maybe it’s going to happen,’ ” Deon said. 

“I think right after that, they were like, ‘Yeah, I want you to come back.’ And I just could not believe it.”

Now with the chance of a lifetime, Deon wants to make it clear to Hollywood that he’s more than just a laugh machine.

“I’m in this acting thing, I don’t want to be in it just for comedy. I want to really take it seriously, study, get it together, and really give the best that I can do and see what happens, you know?” he said. “It’s just a change of pace … just doing something that I always wanted to do.”

As for what to expect in the newest rendition of “The Color Purple,” Deon put it quite succinctly. 

“The fact is that this ain’t the old ‘Color Purple.’ This ‘Color Purple’ ain’t your mama’s ‘Color Purple,’ it’s a whole different outlook,” he said. “What you’re going to see is something that you’ve never seen before in cinema. I guarantee it…I’m not just hyping this up, it really is.”  

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.