How 'Candy' became the song for The Best Man 's iconic wedding reception scene — and other untold stories
The end of an era is upon us.
The Best Man franchise began in 1999 with a film about a group of friends reuniting for the wedding of two members of the tight-knit group. What began with one film turned into a decades-spanning franchise from writer-director Malcolm D. Lee starring household names including Taye Diggs, Nia Long, and Sanaa Lathan. In 2013, the group returned for the beloved sequel The Best Man Holiday. Now, almost a decade later Lee has reunited the cast and team with executive producer Dayna Lynne North for one last time for Peacock miniseries The Best Man: The Final Chapters.
Ahead of the premiere of the miniseries that will end the saga, franchise mastermind Lee as well as cast members Diggs, Regina Hall, and Morris Chestnut share memories about scenes, famous fans, and much more.
Everett Collection Malcolm D. Lee directing 'The Best Man Holiday'
Other big names wanted roles
The Best Man franchise has a core cast of iconic actors, including Long, Diggs and Lathan, who deliver unforgettable chemistry. "Here were eight roles for Black actors to play non-stereotypical roles and so the community was really excited about engaging in this project," explains Lee. As a result many actors auditioned to play Jordan, Lance, Harper, and the rest of the crew. "We had a number of people come in who are great to play Shelby," he says about actors including Nicole Ari Parker who auditioned for the role. Tracee Ellis Ross, Michael Jai White, and Regina King were also among the actors Lee met with during the process.
Terrence Howard's memorable audition
Diggs remembers when he read with Terrence Howard very well. The actor, who would end up being cast as Quentin opposite Diggs, brought his own props to the audition, including a guitar. "I remember in the scene he took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. I was like 'Okay. This is someone who speaks my language because he was doing his own thing," Diggs recalls. "I got so upset I remember hitting the cigarette out of his mouth and he laughed. He made the laugh work within the scene."
Regina Hall walked out of her audition and still landed the part
Candace makes a grand entrance during Lance's bachelor party as Candy, but for Hall getting that sequence right was a journey. Hall knew she wasn't a great dancer, so she walked out of the dance at the audition. "I remember I was in school with this girl who was like 'All you gotta do is smack your ass, and I was like 'That's it?' so I went into the audition and did that. I remember they stopped the music and said, can you do anything else?' I said thank you, took my coat, and left," she shares. Then she got word from her agent that they wanted to offer her the part and were willing to hire a choreographer. After working with the dance coach, Hall remembers meeting the woman who made the costumes at her apartment and being told "My girls are gonna destroy you." Referring to Hall dancing "by the numbers," the woman made the actress dance in the mirror until she turned herself on. "That's probably when I fell into not thinking about the moves so much," Hall explains. All that work prepared Hall for her first day and the iconic scene fans of The Best Man remember very well.
One game-changing song and dance
With one dance scene, The Best Man gave us a cultural phenomenon. During Lance and Mia's wedding reception, the party broke out into the Electric Slide while "Candy" by Cameo played as the credits began to roll, and Black weddings have not been the same since. Lee shares that he would see people do the Electric Slide to Marcia Griffiths and Bunny Wailer's "Electric Boogie" when he was studying at Georgetown and, while he loved the energy of the Black students dancing together, he was not a fan of the song that went with the dance. "I remember how funny it was because everyone thought we were gonna dance to the song and were like "How are we gonna do that?" and I just told them to trust me," he recalls. The added challenge for Hall was that she didn't know the Electric Slide before making the movie. "Saana [Lathan] taught me that," she reveals.
Everett Collection Terrence Dashon Howard, Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut, and Harold Perrineau in 'The Best Man'
The studio was nervous about the card table scene
Harper (Diggs), Quentin (Howard), Lance (Chestnut), and Murch's (Harold Perrineau) deep friendship was encapsulated during the The Best Man's well-known card table scene. "The studio was very nervous about it, but this was the central story of the guy's friendship," Lee shares. The scene involves the four characters playing cards at a table while reminiscing, but the 10-minute scene that relies on their chemistry was a gamble as far as the studio was concerned. Thankfully it worked. "I wanted to beat that scene up with the actors and we did, so that is a really fun scene," says Lee. Chestnut admits that one thing the four men weren't doing was actually playing Spades.
Written for WIll and Jada?!
"Will [Smith] said in an article around that time that there was such a dearth of Black roles in Hollywood and he couldn't even get a movie with his wife," Lee recalls about initially writing The Best Man for Will and Jada Pinkett Smith. The filmmaker shares that after telling Smith in-person, the two got to hang out for a while after that.
Famous fans of the franchise
The Best Man franchise was unlike a lot of the stories in the world about Black people, so it's not surprising that the franchise has its own celebrity fans. Jamie Foxx and Whitney Houston were among the stars who shared their excitement about the film with Lee. "Michael Jackson wanted to do a song for The Best Man. I talked to him on the phone and said he wanted to do it," Lee shares. Another huge fan of the first film was Prince who Lee screened the film for in Minneapolis. "He was cackling like crazy watching the movie," the writer-director shares.
Everett Collection Taye Diggs and Nia Long in 'The Best Man'
The Aaliyah number that almost was
The men dancing to "Can You Stand the Rain?" is one of The Best Man franchise's most iconic moments, but the women almost had their own musical moment in The Best Man Holiday. "It was written into the script," Lee says about a performance that almost was," It was gonna be to Aaliyah's 'One in a Million' and we did a table read of it." The budget was one concern, but Lee admits that the story wouldn't "be able to sustain it" given where the scene was in the movie. "What follows is this nice montage of couples getting together, making love and being intimate," he explains about having the men serenade the women instead of having a dance-off.
Stars who did their own stunts
Shelby (Melissa De Sousa) and Candy (Hall) got into quite the tussle in The Best Man Holiday, and the actresses did their own stunts. "I remember that Melissa and I wanted to do it. We had stunt doubles, but we were like 'Let us do it'," Hall shares. It was a comedic fight scene, but it was still Hall's first. As with any fight, it was coordinated, but the actresses wanted it to feel real. Looking back, Hall finds the juxtaposition of the animosity of the characters in the scene and how much fun the actresses had as they laughed their way through filming it. "We rehearsed it and by the end my back was hurting, my knees were hurting, and I was like I shouldn't be out here fighting,'" she recalls.
The Best Man's Impact
While Lee and the stars have stories about how The Best Man franchise impacted them, the franchise's creator remembers one tangible example. "Clint Culpepper, the guy running Screen Gems, said to me personally that The Best Man was the reason he was able to make as many movies about the Black experience as he was," he shares. Lee also remembers speaking to young kids on a panel for organization The Ron Brown Scholarship who told him they wanted their life and friendships to be like the ones they saw in the film. "The Best Man is aspirational," he shares.
The Best Man: The Final Chapters premieres on Peacock Dec. 22.
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