The Verge: Kali Hawk

And you weren't?

I kind of was because I wanted it, but I felt like it was coming at the wrong time. I wanted to do it so I could get into movies, but I was doing movies already! I had an agent, these managers, all these things I didn't have the year before. So I got on the phone and I said to them, "Look. Life is not a straight line for me. There's no rhyme or reason. I'm that person who's walking down the street and meets Ron Howard in the supermarket and he puts me in a movie." And everyone on the phone just goes dead silent. They think I'm nuts! Who comes into the game talking all kinds of shit like this? All I know is that I just say whatever the heck I want and hope it sticks, and if it doesn't, oh well. I'm no worse off than before I said it.

So I said that and everyone was dead silent, and I said, "Well, that hasn't happened yet, but it will, because shit like that happens to me all the time." And then two weeks later, Imagine Entertainment called my managers and asked for me to have a meeting with Ron and Brian Grazer. And I said, "That's great! Can you schedule it at the fucking Bristol Farms?" And they were like, why? And I said, "Don't you remember when I was not wanting to do Saturday Night Live because I knew I'd meet Ron Howard in the supermarket, and you guys got all silent?" So now they're super jazzed. Like, a TV offer came in and they were like, "I don't know, I think we should pass on it! I think we should hold out!" And I was like, "Yeah, you're goddamn right we should hold out!" [Laughs]

So there's no part of you that's going to watch SNL this year and think, "I could have been Michelle Obama?"

You know, it's funny that you say that because that's really what made the decision for me. I'm not driven by the money only -- I like that you can make a great living doing art, but that's not my reason for doing it. Saturday Night Live doesn't pay that much, but I love it and I would have done it. They said, however, that I had to bring some kind of Michelle Obama character [to the audition], and I didn't want to do it. I was like, "I don't know, I don't know."

Here's the thing: There are three top African Americans in the world. There's Oprah Winfrey, there's Barack Obama, and there's Michelle Obama. The Obamas take up two of the top three -- do I want my introduction to the world to be me taking a shot at the better half of this great couple that everyone across the world has put their hope and faith into? I'm already kind of off the chain in Couples Retreat, so what am I going to do: Go sign up to be the token black girl on this show and make fun of one of the most prestigious women that we have? No! And no one really understood it. Maybe I was sensitive for others, like, "Is this what other people want to see? I don't know." And if there's a question about it, I don't want to be the fall guy for it. Someone else can totally go and do that if they want. I don't know if I want to be Michelle Obama. I don't know if I want to take that chance.

In the end, I guess we'll see. I know they've been looking for an African American female for a long time. That's a specific role that they're trying to fill. I was like, "I've got a lot of characters I can do, and that's the one you require?" It kind of made me feel limited before I got on the plane, so that helped me realize that maybe I should stick to what I was doing.

So let's go back to that Spike Lee spoof you did, where you played a girl very vocally hating on Mariah Carey in a club. Tell me about dissing Mariah to her face.

It was really weird because when I was doing my stuff at first, she wasn't there so I'd just do it with a stand-in. In between takes, I was still in character and just making up random shit to say and having a ball, and it was so scathing that Spike was like, "Say it again! Let's use it." So finally, when it came time for Mariah to do her stuff, she didn't want anybody to be there, but it was just her and she didn't have anybody to look at. And I was just bringing it, like bringing this weird, crazy character all ghetto bitch times nine thousand. [Laughs] Spike's a New Yorker and he loves that, so he was like, "You know what? Get Kali back in here." And he put me on the apple box next to the camera so I could inspire Mariah to say things and have me to look at and listen to while she was doing her stuff. He asked me to do things silently, so I said, "OK," and I was mouthing these words to her. When it was over, I was like, "I'm so sorry! I apologize for all those things I never said." And she said, "No, no, that's great. I liked the 'Hi, bitch.' That was classic."

Do you have those moments where you improv and do your thing and then you think later, "I can't believe I just said that?"

That's my whole entire life. I'm trying to contain it as I do press for the movie. I'm a straight-shooter, you know? I'm a New Yorker and we say what we're thinking. Like, I like to swear. A lot. And I have to be very, very conscious about it because you don't want to walk into a meeting and be dropping f-bombs and have them think you're mad at them. [Laughs] I'm trying to learn how to filter the things I say. It's really hard, because I think in a way, you're right: You need to be able to access that and have that freedom to be free in your work. But how do you draw the line where you free-associate in your comedy and you don't have that freedom in your normal life? I feel like you can't do it.

As I'm talking about this, I'm walking down to give the cab driver his money, and I'm looking at my little boots, just dying laughing. I can't believe I tried to explain to him that I was good for the money because...yeah. [Laughs]

Hey, it worked!

I mean, he's not dropping me off at Harlem. I'm in a huge apartment in a really nice building. [To cab driver] Here you go, thank you so much. [To me] I mean, it's all I had to barter with! All I had was my fashion. ♦

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