Reddick explained that he got the offer to do the show and had never heard of it, so he went online to check it out and was understandably confused. For those who have not seen Andre’s bonkers bits, it’s sort of one-part “The Tom Green Show” and one part “Jackass,” and most of the jokes are born out of pure absurdity. It’s not the kind of thing actors of Reddick’s stature tend to tackle, but he was intrigued. After talking to some friends and being convinced, he and Andre got on the phone to discuss bits. That’s a pretty big deal for Andre, who likes to shock his guests, but apparently, Reddick was given a lot of control:
“I get there that day and all that stuff goes out the window. So then he decides, ‘Oh, let’s try this.’ So that’s literally in the dressing room, like I don’t know, 15, 20 minutes before I’m supposed to go out there he pitches me this LeVar Burton thing. And he hands me some stuff, he said, ‘Kinda say this stuff, but you can ad-lib too. So, and the moment — I mean, there was some crazy stuff that didn’t even get on. Like, for example, at one point he had an exercise video on a television screen playing and he wanted me to be sitting in the chair kinda trying to do the exercises with the video. And the getting angry thing, he said, ‘On the next take just get pissed off and walk away.’ And then — I mean, to slam the desk, that was just spontaneous.”
There are only a few times where Andre has seemed genuinely startled or frightened by his guest’s reactions, but Reddick slamming the desk is definitely one of them.
