-Our next guest is a talented actor who is
currently starring as Magic Johnson
in "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,"
which airs Sundays on HBO.
Let's take a look.
-You sayin' I don't act right?
-I'm saying, if you want respect within this team,
young brother, you have to show some.
-I have to show some respect?
For this team?
The team that you don't even run for,
the team that I've been working my ass off
trying to bring together, that team?
We all calling you Cap, but you ain't lead [bleep] around here.
-Please welcome to the show Quincy Isaiah, everybody!
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
How's it going, my friend? -I'm good, I'm good.
-You brought the mug out.
-Yeah, I had to show everybody what you got for me.
If y'all ever get a chance, come on "Seth Meyers."
-Yeah. -You get gifts.
-I got you that. We got a winter hat.
-Yeah, I thought it was the Lions and then --
It said "Late Night." You know?
-We give Detroit Lions hats to all our guests.
-I didn't know, I didn't know.
-By the way, this is so nice of you.
We were talking backstage about the fact
that you grew up in Michigan. -Yep.
-That's why you probably thought it was a Detroit Lions hat.
-That's exactly why I thought it was.
-And so you grew up more of a Pistons fan than a Lakers fan,
and I grew up -- you know, I'm a Celtics fan,
not a Lakers fan. -That's why I wore my green.
-Exactly, thank you. I want to say that.
That's why I was gonna give you a shout-out.
You wore Celtics green for me. That's very kind of you.
And this is your first talk show.
And we're so honored to have you on a talk show.
-Yeah, man. [ Cheers and applause ]
Thank you, thank you.
-And, by the way...
I know what you did by bringing this stuff out
'cause now everybody else knows they got to give you
nice stuff in their dressing room.
-Well, I mean, if that works.
I mean, you know? [ Laughter ]
-So, man, this must be so surreal to go audition
to play Magic Johnson.
I mean, auditioning is hard enough to begin with,
but to go in a room knowing that you're, you know, basically
trying to play this iconic figure, what was it like?
-Yeah, so, I auditioned first, and I had auditioned
hundreds of times before that, but I didn't know, like,
what I was auditioning for.
And once I got to the callback,
that's when I was like, "Oh, okay, this is Adam McKay."
-Yeah.
-I got these execs sitting in the room.
But, like, Adam is so cool.
Like, we started talking,
and he had went to my college for, like, improv comedy.
-Oh, gotcha, yeah. -And so we connected over that,
and he just, like, put me at ease, and he let me rip.
And they laughed and, like, you know, they were really engaged
in the callback, so I just felt really good about it.
-You know, Adam is obviously someone who has done comedy,
you know, things like "Step Brothers" and also,
you know, more serious stuff like "The Big Short."
And this is such a nice combo with the bows --
for both, excuse me.
It must be such fun material to play,
but there's a lot of basketball stuff, too, and you had to --
Is it true that you had to go to a sort of
basketball boot camp with former Laker Rick Fox?
-Yeah. So, after the callback, I want to say like about two weeks
after that, I got a call saying that they wanted to do
a basketball audition.
And that's when I met Rick for the first time.
And you know, just thinking like,
"Oh, we about to just shoot some hoops, throw some passes."
[ Laughter ]
He was like, "Lace them up," and we start running and dribbling
and shooting and just started doing drills.
I would shoot, run, touch the line, come back,
shoot, run, touch the line.
It was a lot. It was a lot. [ Laughter ]
But so, I found out later, he tried to make me throw up.
Didn't happen. -Alright.
-Didn't happen. -Yeah, 'cause they can't have
you throwing up on set. -Yeah, yeah, you know?
Like, "No, I played football. We good."
-You played college football, correct?
-Yeah. -Yeah, alright.
Did you think, when you went to the first audition,
did you think, "I can play, you know, one of
the greatest basketball players of all time"?
-Not like that. [ Laughter ]
I felt like, you know, I could play an athlete.
-Yeah, yeah. I think that's right.
-And the acting, like, "We acting, right?"
[ Laughter ]
"With the acting, the athlete, we should find a middle ground."
-Yeah, there'll be some editing, right?
You're like, "Yeah, I'll do this, and then we'll cut to
a basket and the ball will go through." Yeah.
-You picking up what I'm putting down.
-Yeah, I've got a background in film, yeah.
[ Laughter ] -Right, right, right, yeah.
-Now, I also heard that you were sort of maybe --
the cusp is the wrong word for it --
that you were actually considering a career
in the military before this all happened.
-Yeah. So, I actually come from a military family.
And I had moved out to L.A. two years prior to booking this.
And like I said, I had hundreds of auditions and didn't book
anything that was paying anything over like $100.
So I was just like, "I need the money."
I also, you know, like the military.
I thought that I could use the discipline and, like,
the training and all that.
But, like, I had a hip surgery in 10th grade,
and they didn't call me back after they found that out.
And then I booked this, and then they actually called me back,
like, I want to say, like a month or two after.
They was like, "Hey, you still interested in the military?"
I'm like, "Mm."
[ Laughter ]
"I think I'm alright right now." [ Laughter ]
"I think I'm good. Think I'm good."
But if they listening, thank you for the offer.
[ Laughter ]
I'm good. -Yeah.
By the way, whoever turned you down for that hip right now,
every week is watching the show being like, "I blew it."
[ Laughter ]
"This guy's hip is fine. Look at it, he's Magic Johnson."
-"He could have been a real good sergeant."
[ Laughter ] Man.
-And you, as we mentioned, grew up in Michigan.
So is that Pistons? Were you a Pistons family?
-My dad was a real big Pistons fan.
But I love Shaq, so I kind of followed wherever he went.
But actually, my middle name comes from Isaiah Thomas.
-Alright. -So, like it's spelled --
I spell it differently because I didn't know that
before I changed my stage name. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-But, yeah, Quincy Isaiah.
-Alright, well, that's fantastic.
That's a very nice tribute to where you grew up
and your dad and everything.
And, man, it is such a fun show,
and it's so lovely to have you here.
Thank you so much for being with us.
-Yeah, thank you. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Quincy Isaiah, everybody.
"Winning Time" airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. on HBO
and is available to stream on HBO Max.