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(CNN) — Wanda Sykes has a hilarious reason why she wanted to play Kevin Hart’s mother in his new animated series, “Lil Kev.”
“I get to yell at Kevin all time,” she deadpanned to CNN. “That’s it.”
It’s the type of funny viewers can expect from the adult animated series, which streams on BET+. “Adult” because while it’s based on Hart’s childhood in north Philadelphia in the ’90s, the comedy is definitely subversive and for grown ups.
Hart told CNN the new show was inspired by the humor in his household growing up.
“As an adult, looking back on those times and just kind of going down memory lane of a lot of these stories, it’s like, oh man, how funny would this be if I could tell it through this lens?” Hart said.
That lens has him playing a younger version of himself, Sykes as his mom, Deon Cole as his uncle Richard Jr. and Cree Summer as his best friend, Gerald, in addition to multiple celebrity guests.
Hart said there was never any doubt that Sykes would be a part of the show if she wanted to be.
“No other options, I say that with my hand on the Bible,” he said. “I am being 1000% honest. There was never another option. It was all Wanda all the time. And our fingers were crossed, and I hoped she was available.”
“It was a quick yes for me,” Sykes said.
“I thought the writing was brilliant. It just has so much heart and was just a love letter from Kevin to his city, to his family, his upbringing,” she added. “There’s so many cities and urban areas and you have these characters, but he gave them humanity.”
Both Hart and Sykes have previously starred in animated projects.
“There’s so much fun that goes into like creating a character in this space because your voice activates new movements, new expressions for the animated character,” Hart said. “This cartoon figure at a certain point really does start to take on mannerisms that you know you have.”
“Little Kevin’s very much me when I was a child,” he added. “Just the looking up, always looking up at people, the reaction, the ‘Huh?’ That stuff is extremely funny when it comes to life.”
The-CNN-Wire
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