Bill Bellamy Opens About His Role in Netflix’s ’Self Made,’ Being Discovered By Russell Simmons, Originating The Term “Booty Call” and More In ‘Strong Black Legends’ Interview

Actor and comedian Bill Bellamy recently sat down with Netflix’s Strong Black Legends podcast to discuss his role in Netflix’s new Madam C.J. Walker docuseries Self Made, as well as his rise to fame.

Speaking on his role in Self Made, Bellamy revealed that his character in the series is different from his previous roles.

“This is a different Bill Bellamy for everybody,” Bellamy said. “I think you get a chance me again as an actor guy. Because this role, the cast is bananas. Octavia Spencer plays Madam C.J. Walker. Blair Underwood plays C.J. Walker. Tiffany Haddish is her daughter. … I play Sweetness. Sweetness is the numbers runner, but he is a bad guy.”

As he continued, he explained how he prepared for the role and broke down the special qualities his character possesses.

“The feeling for Sweetness is hunger,” he continued. “My other character was envy; this was hunger. When you’re hungry, you do anything to eat, right? So he’s the type of guy, wherever the opportunity is to eat, he is going to eat. … Because whether it’s manipulation, whether it’s using his leverage with his power, or his relationships to get to X, he’s gotta eat. So Sweetness is that dude. And he stay hungry.”

Bellamy also suggested he should be rewarded for his performance in the series with an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a series.

“You’re gonna like it, you gone be like ‘Ooh, Bill tripping,’” he explained to the interviewer. “They gotta give me that Emmy. Stop playing. Go on, give it to me.”

The How To Be A Player star said black people would be encouraged by the docuseries.

“I think they’re going to be inspired to go after their dreams. Madam C.J. Walker takes all your excuses away. I don’t want to hear it. If Madam C.J. Walker… there was no civil rights, there was nothing in order to say, ‘Okay, you can do that,’ she did it anyway. So we don’t have an excuse. You want to dream, dream. But you got to put that dream into action. I think that’s what this moral of the story is. Like self-made, it’s like, ‘Yo, you can make yourself who you want to be, but you got to do the work,’” he added.

Elsewhere, Bellamy also discussed his rise to fame after Russell Simmons discovered him during a stand-up routine at comedy club where he coined the term booty call.

One of his first big gigs was Def Comedy Jam, presented by Russell Simmons, which opened doors to a successful career and longevity.

“I was just the hottest comedian in Jersey, but I had to break in New York,” he explained. “I popped into a place called Uptown Comedy in Harlem one night. Charlie Barnett was on stage. This is a true story. He was murdering. Killing, killing.”

Bellamy was scheduled to perform after Barnett; however, things took a turn for the worst when club owner Andre Brown suggested that Bellamy perform the following week since Barnett had pretty much won the crowd over for the night.

“I said nope. I’m going on tonight. Cause I wrote this joke, and it’s funny as hell, and I gotta do it,” he continued. “This is when I wrote booty call. … I said ‘Dre look, I don’t care what Charlie Barnett is doing, just put me on next.’”

Brown agreed to let Bellamy follow Barnett’s performance.

“Usually comics, their strongest joke is their ending joke,” Bellamy explained. “I said imma start with my closer; imma do two jokes I got, then imma throw that booty call in there. … “So I do my closer, bam, I got em. Second joke, bam, I got em. I dropped the new joke, booty call in the middle, explosion.”

After closing with booty call and winning over the audience, Bellamy also won over entrepreneur Russell Simmons.

“Had I not went on stage, Russell would have never saw me,” he added. “Russell comes running around the back. He was like, ‘What’s your name? That was amazing! First of all, I just want to introduce you to all these HBO people, their amazing. This is so & so; she’s creative director. We’re doing this thing called Def Comedy Jam, and we’re going to get all these urban comics. We wanna bring this energy from Uptown to America. This is the culture,’ and I was like who in the hell is Russell Simmons. I didn’t even know. So I get a Def jam card from Russell Simmons, I meet like 7 HBO people, and the rest is history.”

“So Andre Brown is you’re out there, see, I ain’t listen to you,” he said.