In a new interview with Vulture’s Good One Podcast, the 32-year-old actor and rapper talked about his friendship with Chappelle, explaining how it shapes his own understanding of creativity and humanity and that their bond is based on ordinary conversation rather than shop talk about the industry.
“Dave’s just nice and Dave’s like a regular person,” he told Jesse David Fox near the four-minute, 24-second mark in the video linked above, noting that despite Chappelle’s legendary status, they mostly talk about life and hip hop.
“He’s just very much so a person that’s telling you to do it in your way,” Staples explained. “He speaks in riddles and shit. It’s interesting to hear him speak because he always has a story to tell. I’ve kind of seen his process, like his stand-up process, which is interesting because it’s kind of similar to that.”
He added, “He pulls from kind of conversations in the room and [I] kind of see him work out things, and then go do a show with the worked out material. It happens relatively fast.”
At the 57-minute mark, the conversation turned to whether Staples might try stand-up himself.
“Oh, I hear it all the time, but I’ll never do that,” he said, pointing out the intense labor and discipline it requires. “I think it’s just probably storytelling, but it’s a lot of work. I’m not saying that to demean it. I’m saying in a sense of like, that’s not something that you can just pick up and be like, ‘I do that,’ so I would really need to take in the time … I don’t know if I got that in me right now.”
When Fox suggested a “soft launch” approach to stand-up through planned Q&As, Staples connected it back to Chappelle’s process. He recalled seeing Chappelle spend hours talking casually in a small comedy club and then suddenly having a full batch of material.
“I’ve never seen some shit like that in my life,” Staples joked. “He’s a psychopath.”
Although he remains unsure he would ever take the stage himself, he left the door open just a crack, saying, “It’s a really interesting muscle to develop, you know? … Maybe one day.”