Damon Wayans Sr. got to relive “the fun of having a family and having a wife” on My Wife and Kids.
My Wife and Kids star-and-creator Damon Wayans Sr.
The 65-year-old actor created the ABC sitcom – in which he played Michael Kyle from 2001 until 2005 – to find the joy of family life again as he and ex-wife, actress Lisa Thorner, processed their divorce, which was finalised in 2000 after 16 years of marriage.
Damon explained to People: “I got a chance to relive the beauty of being married, the fun of having a family and having a wife, and that’s why I named it My Wife and Kids, because I wanted to celebrate it as opposed to give a very bitter side of the breakup.
“[It was] very medicinal, almost, to me it helped me a lot.”
Damon – who has Damon Wayans Jr., 43, Michael Wayans, 41, Cara Mia Wayans, 39, and Kyla Wayans, 35, with Lisa – worked with the likes of Tisha Campbell, 57, George Gore II, 43, Parker McKenna Posey, 30, Jennifer Freeman, 40, and Noah Gray-Cabey, 30, in the sitcom.
Set in Stamford, Connecticut, My Wife and Kids follows trucking boss Michael Kyle Sr, who tries to run his wealthy family, but his wife Janet (Tisha), and children Michael Jr. (George), Claire (Jennifer), and Kady (Parker) constantly prove that he is not really in charge.
And Damon loved working with all the cast.
He added: “We just had so much fun, and it’s interesting when you go to a job, and you love everybody. So there wasn’t like a time that we had to get out. Nobody wanted to leave.
“We come in early, and we stay late, and most of the time we’re there just laughing and enjoying each other’s company, and then there is work, then we would improvise within the scenes.”
Damon and Tisha focused on showing love and trust to show their relationship is real, just like a real family.
He recalled: “We never really cared about the words, it’s just the intent, and ‘I wanna see the love in your eyes.’
“When we’re in this scene, I need to see the love in your eyes and the trust that we have between each other. That’s a family.”
Damon still cannot believe the success of My Wife and Kids 25 years later.
He said: “If I go to Paris or Brazil, they call me Michael Kyle, and they won’t call me anything else but Michael Kyle, and they love it. They tell me they grew up on it and here, in the States, that people love it and they act like it just came on.”
And he sometimes rewatches episodes because he forgot about some of the storylines.
The star added: “For me, I forgot, my daughter sent me something that we did an episode and I found myself laughing and then I said, ‘I don’t remember ever shooting that.
“It’s just nice to have because we did 125 episodes, so I don’t remember any of them really, and then I saw them, and I rediscovered the joy that I had.”
