Comedian Jamie Kennedy loves Los Angeles, but thinks Hollywood has traded in originality and movie-star mystique for ideology and influencers. Still, the actor doubled down on show business. Comedy can cut through, he said, and save an industry that has lost its nerve.
The ‘Scream’ star was critical of the modern media landscape, but not bitter. He told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that he was encouraged by what he sees as a return to center for Hollywood, or at least for comedy.
Kennedy argued that comedy remains one of the few places in entertainment where people with different politics, backgrounds and identities can still share a stage.
“I think the comedy community is the most inclusive community in the arts,” he said. “A laugh is a laugh.”
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Kennedy pointed to comedian Margaret Cho, a fellow stand-up with whom he has worked in the past.
“I love Margaret. I’ve worked with her in multiple shows,” he said. “She’s awesome. She’s probably radically different than me on the political spectrum, but she’s hilarious, and she’s cool, and she should always, always have an opinion and I should always be able to have my opinion.”
Outside the comedy club, however, he said it is difficult for people to “just coexist.”
“People won’t accept reality,” Kennedy said. “They don’t want to accept certain things. And they want to silence you. And that is crazy, because you should have a voice … When they start deeming your speech as hate speech for questioning something, that’s insanity. And it’s like, what happened to discourse?”
Kennedy said he believes audiences are less interested in being offended and more eager for comedians to take big swings again. Humor is necessary, he argued, to question politics, celebrity and culture.
Reflecting on “Malibu’s Most Wanted,” the 2003 comedy film following his wannabe rapper character, B-Rad, who is abducted by a pair of actors hired by his senator father in order to scare him straight, Kennedy said something similarly satirical “100%” could be created today, and “200%” should be.
“We’re on the tail and of everyone being upset, so I think the people just don’t care anymore, and I think the people are going to come back again,” Kennedy said. “And we learned from the last seven or eight years of the great wokeness — which, some of it was good, we should have had, but a lot of it became nonsense … Stuff like [‘Malibu’s Most Wanted’] is needed to question things.”
He surmised that networks today might be more hesitant to buy a product like “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment,” his sketch comedy/hidden camera prank show hybrid that ran in the early 2000s, but also that attitudes were changing.
“I think we’re coming back, though, because we’re sick of comedy being considered so many different things,” Kennedy said. “They tried to crush it. But I think that it could [be made] now. But for a few years there everything offended everybody, which is wild.”
“I think social media gave everybody a voice. And a lot of people should have laryngitis. I think if you’re woke, take an Ambien,” Kennedy told Fox News Digital.
The comedian was critical of “woke” Hollywood, saying the term was co-opted by popular culture and has lost its meaning. He also took issue with the influencer craze he thinks has pervaded Hollywood, not because he sees social media as an illegitimate avenue to success, but because attention does not always equate to quality, he said.
“Influencers, I’m not coming for you. I think you should do it,” Kennedy said. “Get your money. Have fun, but … Attention. This is the issue. Attention does not mean it’s great. It just means you’re great at getting attention, and that’s the problem. We’ve become a psycho culture, like, ‘Are you looking at me? How many views I got?’ I mean, it’s psychotic.”
He likened influencers hawking sponsored products to “a live-action QVC,” and said he wished they would be more transparent.
“Don’t act like you are important. Don’t like you’re cool. Unless you can play a riff like John Mayer or dance like MJ or write a movie like Aaron Sorkin, you’re a huckster,” Kennedy continued. “And it doesn’t mean you’re not great at it… I think it’s the people taking themselves too seriously in something that’s not that serious [that bothers me].“
Everyone has to adapt to the new media landscape, he said, pointing to the heavy influencer presence at the Oscars — which he called one of the most far-reaching cultural events in the world — and its declining viewership, as evidence that the game has changed.
He recounted a story from a model, who told him that when she attends auditions, she is asked about her social media follower count.
“Hollywood acts like it’s so exclusive, but it will literally b—- down for money and popularity,” he said.
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Another red carpet full of influencers was at the premiere of “Scream 7.”
Kennedy, whose character Randy Meeks died in “Scream 2,” did not appear in the most recent entry in the franchise. His lack of presence at the premiere caused a stir online, with fans wondering whether he had been ousted from the tight-knit cast.
But the actor didn’t think much of it. He praised Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding, who now play the niece and nephew of Kennedy’s own character, for “taking what I’ve done and elevating it and making it their own.”
“I’m very fortunate to be part of [Scream]. It wasn’t a big deal until tons of people were like, ‘Yo, why weren’t you at the premiere? Why weren’t you at the premier?’ I was like, ‘I’m dead. I got killed in the early 2000s.'”
He said he would have liked to see his old friends again, and he is grateful for his fans, but he doesn’t want to overstay his welcome.
For all his critique of the entertainment industry today, Kennedy made it clear that he still believes in Los Angeles.
He called California “the jewel of America,” and lamented the flight of productions overseas since they have become too expensive to shoot in LA.
Those are just a few of the reasons Kennedy bought a new house in West Hollywood to turn into his own studio.
“If I’m going to create content, I have to do it here,” he said. Not only are there fewer projects being created today, with the rise of mega-budget blockbusters and resulting decline in mid-budget movies, but Kennedy said he’s always been a self-starter and, at this point in his career, he is more excited about his own ideas anyway.
“There’s not too many people I could go on a set and listen to,” he said. “Now, I mean, that really sounds rude, but I’ve been so fortunate. I’ve worked with some of the greatest directors and producers and writers. I work with auteurs. You know, I worked with Baz Luhrmann, Wes Craven, David O. Russell, Tony Scott, Frank Oz, just to name a few.”
Kennedy said these industry giants taught him lessons about both craft and life.
“I just think that we need to get the business back, or else what is Hollywood?” he said.
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To that end, the actor has not been resting on his laurels. He recently co-starred in what he described as an old-school-style independent comedy film, “Wingman,” directed by Harland Williams, which he said never could have been made with a traditional studio “because it would have been noted to death.” The movie makes its U.S. streaming debut May 26 on Apple TV.
With modifications to his new studio home underway and multiple projects set to release, Kennedy refuses to give up on LA. He closely follows the city’s politics, vocalizing support for Spencer Pratt’s mayoral campaign, and railed against what he described as the oncoming “air conditioning crisis” he claimed was exacerbated by Biden-era restrictions on the types of refrigerants that are permitted in AC units, contributing to the skyrocketing cost of keeping residents cool.
Nonetheless, Kennedy isn’t going anywhere.
“I’ll never leave. I was thinking, even if I didn’t work in Hollywood, which I’ll never not do, it’s my home.”
