You’ve also taken that trauma toward your standup, which is more and more personal every year. You’re now touring a special about one of your kids, who transitioned.

Yeah. But it’s not their transition. It was my transition going from denial to acceptance and the five stages of grief that I went through in order to get there. See, it doesn’t sound like a comedy.

It doesn’t.

But I put dramatic structure under my comedies because as a writer, that’s what I’ve learned from writing. Every comedy I write has some kind of dramatic structure. So you have that dramatic structure and for me, that’s the heart and it’s like a great sitcom. In every great sitcom, 22 minutes long, there’s like a minute of heart. In every great special, I try to go, I need two minutes of heart. Every time I work it, I find something new. I recently had Dave Chappelle come and he saw it when I was in Dayton. He goes, “Man, man, it’s powerful. It’s powerful, man.” And he’s like, “That was a beautiful set.” And when a GOAT like Dave tells you that you feel good, especially when it’s about my trans child.

Have you ever considered writing a movie that would be this personal? Because I think of your standup as very personal and I don’t always see the personal side of you in your films as much.

Absolutely. I have one that I’m actually crafting in my head right now that’s very personal. But see, I don’t know. I just think that when I do comedies, I’m really broad and entertaining and not … I don’t know. I guess I don’t want to not bore the audience, but I know their level of expectation when it comes to me doing a comedy. And so I try to lay off dramedy. But I think if I can make one just for myself even — I have one in my head, yeah.

We started with me asking you about that line: “If people could die and come back as somebody, come back as me.” And then you said, look, that was true up until 48, and then you had a rough five years. Where are we now? Should we still hope to be reborn as Marlon Wayans?

Honestly, I will say this. I would say even — me at 53, if I could have anybody come back, if I could come back as anybody, I’d probably come back as me because even though I went through all that I went through and only God knows what I went through, to come out of that and know that and have my relationship with God intact. And even though my parents are gone, to hear their whispers and for me, like, my father told me before he passed, he said: “You and your brother should work together again.” I was like, “Pop, I don’t know, man. New Edition keep breaking up. You know it’s hard for five black men to do anything together. Four Tops, man. There’s only three of them left.” And he was like, “Yeah, but you guys do magic together.” I said, “Pop, we dream different. I’m at this point in my life. I want to do this.” “I know, son, but it’s magic y’all do.” I said, “All right.” He said, “For me.” I looked at my dad on that hospital bed and I said, “All right.” I said, “For you. ” He said, “You promise?” I said, “Yeah, I promise.” And he knows me and he knows if he asks me to do something that I, as his baby boy, I honor my father, I honor my mother. And so I think this movie is special. I think my dad seen that the world needs to laugh again, not just me and my brothers to laugh together again, but the world to come together in a theater and to just go have a good time and to bring that nostalgic feeling of laughter and comedy back because you all go through so much hardships in life and it’s good to have those moments where you release in those happy, healthy endorphins. It doesn’t always have to be tears. Laughs are necessary and we haven’t had them in a long time and I just hope that this brings back comedy.

If anybody can…

It’s us or Seth Rogen. Which one?