-Dante, want to tell your joke?
OK.
Why d-- why do elephants go swimming?
AUDIENCE: Why?
JAY LENO: Why?
To get their trunks wet.
Well, you're more of a dancer than a comedian, right?
Are you a dancer?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JAY LENO: Can you do a little of that?
OPRAH WINFREY: Let's see it.
AUDIENCE: Go, Dante.
Go, Dante.
[AUDIENCE CLAPPING TO BEAT]
OPRAH WINFREY: We had a feeling Dante had the "it"
factor when he was only five.
He is now 16.
We Skyped in with him to see how far his talents have taken him.
Well, how I became one of the amazing kids that appeared
with Jay Leno was I just remember
what my mom told me and a little bit of what I remember.
Hi.
My name is Dante.
And I'm five years old.
I auditioned with a really corny, funny joke
that my mom found in a book.
Like, I set that joke up to be, like, one of the funniest
jokes ever.
What do you call a cheese that's not yours?
I don't know.
Nacho cheese.
Yeah, there you go.
I remember that there was this X on the stage.
There were me and two other kids.
But I know when I had to dance, I had to stay on that X,
and I couldn't move off my X. So I had to do my best one-X move.
It was kind of like the robot.
I don't know what I was going through at that moment.
I just know that I had the best one-X move of all time.
When I go back and watch the clip, it makes me laugh.
I laugh at myself all the time.
And I, like, show my friends, like-- like, this is who I w--
this is who I was at this time.
And it's funny to see how old me and new me differ.
This appearance helped me a lot, actually,
like a boost of confidence, a boost of, like, really
knowing what my abilities are.
I didn't really go to my mom and tell her, hey, Mom,
I want to make a career out of entertaining.
I think we all just knew that me and my brother
were going to be entertainers, which is dope.
[LAUGHING]
You missed the whole couch.
I had a whole "Law & Order" episode to myself
called "Transgender Bridge."
And it was, like, the biggest episode of the season,
the most watched.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I got a call from my agent.
And I heard they wanted me to audition for "Lethal Weapon."
So I was like, all right, cool.
I'd watched the movies before with my dad not really
knowing what it was about or who it was because I was so young.
But when I got the role, I was-- I was going crazy.
My dad was going nuts.
My mom was going nuts.
My little brother was going nuts.
Because we all knew how big of a franchise it was.
Oh, just to be in the same room with Damon
Wayans was a big thing to me.
Because he's, like, one of my childhood heroes.
What would I want to say to people
who are just now, you know, supporting me and following me?
Definitely hi.
You know, stay tuned.
There is more to come.
There is always going to be more to come.
And keep your eyes open.
Don't sleep.