First published with the online magazine Black Working Man, here is a look back at one of my favorite and and most educational interviews. Did it help that Laz is extra-easy to look at? But of course! I hope it isn’t our last one and this is a talented brother we ALL need to ‘keep an eye on,’ props and respect Sir!!!

What do a tortured war vet, a two-timing snake of a spouse and a fearless Na’vi warrior chief all have in common? They represent just a few of the colorful characters that Laz Alonso has portrayed, and according to the investment banker-turned actor, every one of them prepared him for the role of a lifetime—that of Leading Man—in his most recent film, Jumping The Broom. Earning $15.2 million dollars in its Mother’s Day weekend debut and out-performing another comedy, the heavily-advertised Something Borrowed, Mr. Alonso’s skills earned high praise and his first-ever Best Actor nomination at the upcoming BET Awards.

“It’s a crossing over,” says the 38-year-old Washington, D.C. native by phone about his decade-long journey to center stage, “one I’ve been working for all these years. I have to really feel connected to a project, I don’t take anything just for the paycheck and so far, I’ve been very fortunate.” And considering the talent he’s surrounded by in the film, (Mike Epps, Tasha Smith, Megan Good, T.D. Jakes), few would quibble that point.

Arguably the first full-fledged African-American wedding-centered film since 1999’s The Best Man, Jumping…focuses on the mayhem that ensues when two very different families come together days before a posh wedding.  Mr. Alonso’s character is Jason Taylor, a blue-collar brother who’s marrying Sabrina Watson (Paula Patton), a woman from an “upper-echelon politically-connected, Obama-esque type of family.” “Since my character went to college, graduated and is working on Wall Street, her family never thought that my family would’ve come from ‘the hood.’ So when Martha’s Vineyard meets Brooklyn, it becomes a ‘Clash of the Titans,’” he laughs. “Angela Bassett plays Paula’s mother and Loretta Devine plays my mother, and they represent two distinct social classes that are trying to make it work. It shows, in a light-hearted and comedic way, that all African-Americans don’t think the same.”

In addition to offering a respite from the more serious material Mr. Alonso’s known for (Jarhead, Miracle at St. Anna, Avatar), Jumping…. also provided the opportunity to be an all-around good guy that filmgoers rooted for, a welcome change of pace for someone who played a string of “technical jerks” in 2007’s This Christmas and in 2010’s Just Wright, where his brief encounter with a smitten Queen Latifah led to his being known as “thebomb.com dude” who wanted to be “just friends.”

Although he understands where filmgoers are coming from, Mr. Alonso sees the characters in a different light. “Luckily, we’ve always found a way to lighten them up so the audience can find a way to either laugh at or with them. In This Christmas, after the baby oil scene, people didn’t hate Malcolm anymore because he got what he deserved. As for being “thebomb.com guy,” I defend his position because guys can just never call back or get something physical (from the woman). My character was straight up and said ‘Look, I’m still not over my ex, can we still be friends?’ And since he didn’t lead her on, I don’t necessarily think he was that bad of a guy. “The funny-light-hearted moments in those scenes saved their integrity, so folks laugh and don’t have the angry resentment that I’ve seen them keep for other actors, like Michael Beach (Soul Food). The humor also helps the audience to see me as a good guy, and that’s who I play in Jumping The Broom: the good son who’s excited to get married and loves his mother very much, but is torn between his new family and his old one.” As rewarding as his experience with Jumping… has been, Mr. Alonso is aware that talent and motivation are moot points without the box office receipts to back them up. Less and less African-American films are being made today, he admits, and the fault lies in sporadic support from the communities they’re targeted to.

“At one time, our genre was huge: you had a lot of filmmakers making Black movies and we would go support them. But over the years, it has dwindled and dwindled to the point now where, if we didn’t have Tyler Perry, we wouldn’t have any black movies to see. We’ll go out to the barbershop and buy the bootleg, but that hurts our own numbers, because what happens is, if African-American movie numbers are down, they’ll say ‘Okay, Tyler is the only one who makes money in this genre, so we’ll give the money to Tyler and not to other African-American filmmakers.’ Miracle at St. Anna was a film that Spike Lee had to go overseas to raise money for, in Italy, to tell the story of Buffalo soldiers in World War II. You have no idea how many Facebook and Twitter messages I get about how much people love that film, but I’m getting those messages three years later after they’ve watched it on cable, not in theaters. We African-Americans have to support our own stuff. If we don’t, it’s like telling Hollywood that none of us have any box office value and that Black movies aren’t worth the effort. When, per se, a Spiderman comes out, our bootlegs may not hurt that 100 million dollar opening weekend, but when Jumping the Broom came out, because it’s playing in not even half the theaters that a blockbuster film is, every eyeball counts.”

But with an enviable resume and new projects on the horizon (he’s portraying Deputy John Burke in the remake of the 1971 classic, Straw Dogs and starred as a US Marshall in A&E’s crime drama, Breakout Kings),The Howard University alum looks to the future with confidence and has advice for success in the field: “Don’t wait, don’t procrastinate, start now. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, get the ball rolling. The first role may not be the ultimate Denzel-esque type of lead, but get your credentials up. If you’re in college and your major is business, take an acting course every semester. If you’re working a 9-to-5, take an acting course on the weekends. Get yourself in a play here or there. If you want to be a director, get yourself a flip-cam, learn editing software and put stuff on YouTube. It may not feel like you’re making progress, but you are building your dream and feeding it, and at some point, it’s going to feed you back.”