Allen Payne 1962(?)— Actor

Allen Payne is a young actor just on the brink of stardom, though he has been perched there for a while. After becoming a familiar face through television shows like Ryan’s Hope and The Cosby Show, Payne seemed poised for the big time when the good movie roles started rolling in.Time magazine even wondered,“Is he the next Denzel?”referring to superstar and heartthrob Denzel Washington. The question has yet to be answered.

Born in Harlem, New York, c 1962, Payne was a tough kid in a tough world. “There was crime all around me as a kid,” he remembered to Tom Provenzano in the Hollywood Drama-Logue.And to Carol Dittbrenner of US Magazine he recalled, “I was just a knucklehead hanging out with my boys. My mom was like, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do with my son?’” He had no definite plans or goals for the future.

Payne’s family moved to Pennsauken, New Jersey, while he was in high school. He was immediately tagged as a trouble maker because of his Harlem roots. After school Payne returned to Manhattan. When one of his friends was killed, Payne’s cousin suggested acting classes in order to keep Payne out of that sort of trouble and off the streets. The cousin dragged Payne to the renowned and well-respected Actor’s Studio.

“The Actor’s studio had such an impressive history behind it,” Payne remarked in his press biography for

Jason’s Lyric,”that I was immediately pulled in. There was such excitement there and a sense of importance to be able to study in the same place where Al Pacino, Steve McQueen and all the other greats had gone before.” Payne began taking classes at the famed HB studios and was soon cast in the off-Broadway production The Harlem Cowboy with the Tribe Theatre Company. He then went on to the show The Arm Wrestle with the Circle Repertory Theatre.

Commercial work put Payne on television, but his break on the small screen came with the recurring role of Lyndon on the daytime drama Ryan ‘s Hope.That led to a small role opposite Jason Gedrick and Tisha Campbell in director Robert Wise’s 1989 feature film Rooftops.But, as Provenzano put it,“Hollywood got its first real big eyeful of this handsome young actor when Mario Van Peebles cast him with Wesley Snipes, Ice T and Judd Nelson in the violent gang film Ne tu Jack City.”

Curiously enough, Payne described that same incident in vastly different terms to Venice’s Mark Ebner.“Mario despises my existence in Hollywood, starting from his fighting tooth and nail to try to keep me out of New Jack City.I am part of the generation that says we are not going to assimilate, and all we know is that we are not treated fairly. Mario is out of touch with black America, yet he knows what white people are thinking about, so, as far as executives are concerned, he’s the coolest black

At a Glance…

Born c. 1962, in Harlem, NY.

Began acting after high school; appeared in recurring roles on Ryan ‘$ Hope, The Cosby Show, and A Different World; appeared in films, including Rooftops, New/ack City, CB4, Jason’s Lyric, The Walking Dead, and Vampire in Brooklyn; appeared in HBO’s Tuskegee Airmen.

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guy in the world.” Payne, obviously proud of and true to his roots, tries to place himself in strong African American vehicles.

Payne was able to do just that when cast in the regular role of wisecracking, Brooklyn-bom Lance Flodman in The Cosby Show and its spinoff A Different World.For that role he is often recognized with a “Hey, Lance!” from a fan on the street. “It’s great to have made a lasting impression,” he admitted to Provenzano.

Payne went right from his role as G Money in New Jack City to play Euripides Smalls, the politically conscious “master verbalizer” in 1993’s gangsta’ rappers spoof CB4.That is when New Jack City creators George Jackson and Doug McHenry tapped Payne to star in Jason ‘s Lyric.They were that pleased with what Ebner called “a locked and loaded performance” in New Jack City.

Jason’s Lyric is a sort of West Side Story meets East of Eden; it takes on some classic themes. The film is about how Payne’s character Jason Alexander tries to struggle with both family and romantic issues in Houston’s tough inner city. Payne told Dittbrenner,“A lot of films have been made about the black experience in America—how people live, and the drugs and the violence. But there are people like Jason who live in that environment and are not of it, who walk right by that ridiculousness, go to work at normal jobs and do right in their lives, despite the odds.”

It was thought by many that this would be the vehicle to fully launch Payne as a big man in Hollywood, but Jason’s Lyric was neither critically acclaimed nor a huge box office success. It first ran up against trouble

when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) film rating board planned to give the film an NC-17 (no children under 17 admited) rating, suggesting some of the sex scenes were too explicit for an R (restricted; persons under 18 require an accompanying parent or guardian) rating. The move would have seriously hindered the film’s chances. Many, including Payne, considered it a racist move. He told Ebner,“It’s clearly a case of not wanting to show two blacks making love on the screen. We can see Harvey Keitel’s genitals [referring to The Bad Lieutenant and The Piano, both of which received R ratings], but the MPAA has a serious problem with my butt.”

In order for the film to be seen, filmmakers were forced to cut the love scene. Whether or not that hurt the film, it did not do well.Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum gave it a “C,” saying that the film”is hampered by the very thing that should distinguish it: The movie is so dense with big themes strung together that character development suffers. And the emotional sum is less than the interconnection of its tragedy 101 parts.”

Big things were also hoped for from plum roles in the character-driven, first-ever, black Vietnam movie The Walking Dead or the Eddie Murphey comedy Vampire in Brooklyn.Neither film was a success; but Vampire did give Payne a chance to work with his idol Murphy. He himself hopes to be a role model for inner city kids. He explained to Deborah Alexander in Movieline,“When you’re sitting in the tenements, watching a small TV, and there are roaches, and you’re laughing at Eddie Murphy, you don’t know what it’s like to tell your cousin: ‘Yo, I wanna do what Eddie’s doing. I can do that.”’

Payne has not been worried though. The roles keep coming—for example, his performance in the much-acclaimed Tuskegee Airmen, an HBO original film. He is in a good place and he knows that. “As an actor I want to make a difference,” he said to Provenzano. He told Dittbrenner, “Growing up, I had no idea what I was going to be doing. And there’s an age when it’s like, if you don’t get him now, he’s lost. My cousin got me in time, and here I am.” And family still means a great deal to Allen Payne. He assured Provenzano,“They are my support system. Whenever I feel beaten up by my work, I go back and chill with them. I am proud of where I come from. It is who I am.”