Fans of film and television were saddened to learn that beloved actor Carl Weathers passed away at 76. There was an outpouring of grief on social media, as fans, co-stars, and collaborators shared their experiences with the Rocky actor.
Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz shared his memories of Weathers when the actor guest-starred as a version of himself on the cult comedy series. Weathers joined the series as Tobias Fünke’s (David Cross) acting coach in its first season. What started as a homoerotic Rocky homage became something else entirely. In an interview with Vulture, Hurwitz said,
“We’d previously talked about how Tobias spent money on Carl Weathers’s stage fighting class, so it seemed like we should get Carl Weathers on the show. I always liked adding stuff that made it look like this is a whole world, and there’s a history between these two guys. Then we had this great idea to do a parody of this very homoerotic scene in Rocky 3 of Carl and Sly Stallone running on the beach. There were shots of their crotches and this big finish to some imaginary race and they were jumping up and down in the water in slow motion. We gotta do this with Carl and Tobias! Then I needed to call Carl Weathers. There’s always [that thing when you’re making] fun of something until you realize, oh, right, it’s a human being.”
“So I called Carl, and said, ‘Hey, I don’t know if you’ve seen the show but we wanna use you for it, and you’d be working with David Cross.’ And he goes, ‘Great, but let me ask you something. It’s not going to be just a bunch of Rocky jokes is it?’ I laughed, ‘No! No! Give me a little credit, Carl. Of course not! It’s a multidimensional character.’ And he was like, ‘Because I direct and I’m a funny guy and I don’t wanna just do a bunch of Rocky jokes. Nobody wants that. Maybe I could be really cheap or something?’ And I said, ‘Whaaaat?’ ‘Maybe I could be really cheap?’ ‘Really? You’d like to do that?’ ‘Oh, absolutely, that’s what I’m saying. I want to play someone funny, not just be a sight gag.’ It was so much better. I went back to the writers room and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this. Carl Weathers wants to be incredibly cheap.’ All credit to Carl on that.”
This inspired choice by Weathers led to some of the best gags in the series, including Weathers’ iconic delivery of “Baby, you got a stew going!”
Weathers discussed his performance in an interview with the A.V. Club, where he said,
“Oh, yeah—a version of me that, quite frankly, is about a million miles from me, but it was lovely to play the one guy who was trying to get on everyone’s tab. I mean, that to me is as funny as things get. You know, in too many cases I’m the guy who’s actually picking up the tab. But in this one, I thought, “I’ve known people like that,” and Mitch Hurwitz just took that and ran with it and made it as funny as anything could be. So it was a tremendous joy to try and get a stew going all the time. [Laughs.] At someone else’s expense, of course!”
Let’s pour out some stew in honor of Weathers’ incredible career. But not too much … there’s still some meat on that bone!
(featured image: 20th Century Fox Television)
