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Your character and Bernie Mac?s have an argument about your knowledge of NASCAR racing. Who really knows more about NASCAR, you or Bernie Mac?
I know more about NASCAR, absolutely. But I grew up going to the races on Saturday and watching NASCAR every Sunday. I?d say I'd be okay on my NASCAR. He got me on the dancing and the singing, but I've got the NASCAR.

How was that storyline introduced into the script?
It's interesting.

There were a couple of scenes that were coat hanger scenes, that stayed from the script we were presented first. The big scene that stayed was the taxicab scene at the very beginning where we come in and meet Bernie for the first time. Everything else we created from within.

Peter Tolan and the Wibberleys and myself and Kevin Sullivan and Bernie, we all worked hard on the script . What we wanted to do was with my character, we just wanted to take the racial stereotypes and break them down in any way, shape, or form that we could. My character, you know, was in a sense, in the same way in the original when Sidney Poitier came in and he's a doctor and affluent and going to the convention in Geneva, my character on the flip side of the stereotype doesn't have a job, doesn't have any money, all of those stereotypes. And then you have Bernie who's the manager of a bank, he's into NASCAR, so we just kind of wanted to take things and flip them. Because that's where good comedy is derived from anyway, is that 180 degree flip.

The dinner party scene with the black jokes, how did that scene come about?
Before we actually did that scene, there was a lot of discussion about it. And at the very beginning of starting to make the movie, Bernie and Kevin and myself sat down and we said, ?Look, we have to all be able to go where nobody wants to go, and we all have to be comfortable with that. We all have to know that it's coming from character, and it's coming for the sake of comedy and that if we can make people feel a little bit uncomfortable, then they can grow a little bit from it.?

Those jokes had been gone through and gone through and gone through and came up with. There was a lot more than what's in the movie, but we just kind of weeded out the ones we felt like they worked, they got the point across. It wasn't overly, overly too offensive, but at the same time they all had kind of a level where it can crack. A level where it can break off. And it was never uncomfortable actually at the table. There was one take - I did my side of the scene first, so they shot all of the jokes, and then they flipped around, and they did the reactions of everybody after that. And off camera I was throwing out some stuff that wasn't in the script and everyone was like [stuttering]. When Howard gets up from the table, he's really getting up from the table. But it was funny. It worked.

How do you compare this version to the original movie?
I think the original was poignant in its time for changing inter-racial relationships. I think our movie has the heart of that, I think it has the premise, I think it has the message, I think it has the soul of that. But it's funny. You can laugh at it and you can enjoy it. I think that once you can start laughing at something and once you go to the uncomfortable places, those are the times that you can really grow.

When I saw the film, it did that for me. Even when I was watching it in the theater at a couple of test screenings, and every time I watched it, we got to the dinner table scene and there were audible gasps in the movie theatre. People gasped. And I'm sitting there, everybody in the theatre is like on pins and needles, doesn't know whether to laugh or not to. I went, ?This is exactly what [we wanted],? because if it's still uncomfortable, then it's not it yet. I think everybody's getting real comfortable now with like ? you know, the state of race relationships, and we should not be comfortable yet. I mean, if it was all even, and if everything was cool, nobody would be uncomfortable in the theatre. And that's the whole point. It is uncomfortable and we've got a lot to do and it ain't all even yet. It's not all right and that's why the movie needs to be made, and I think that it does just that.

Has Sidney Poitier seen ?Guess Who??
I don't know that he has, but I hope that he does and I hope that he likes it.

PAGE 3:Ashton Kutcher on Punking Zoe Saldana and "That '70s Show"