Marlon Wayans Reveals Why His Character’s First Scene Is Enchanting in ‘Respect’

Marlon Wayans of Liesl Tommy’s Respect talks to Awards Daily about playing Aretha Franklin’s first husband Ted White, whom he calls “a damaged man with good intentions.”

Compared to the information available on the Queen of Soul, there’s not a lot of research Marlon Wayans could do to play Aretha Franklin’s first husband, Ted White.

“He didn’t have 24 Grammys,” he says. “I had an ABC News interview [to go on].”

But when he met with Respect director Liesl Tommy to discuss the part, he was taken in by her vision for the film, the costumes and look, and how he could fill in the gaps with playing this real-life influential figure in Franklin’s (Jennifer Hudson) life.

“I was so thoroughly impressed [with Tommy]. We came to terms on who he was. A damaged man with good intentions—to rescue this woman and make her the biggest star in the world.”

When we first meet Ted White in the film, it’s at a summer cookout. He catches Aretha’s eye and even her friends know that she’s done for. It’s love at first sight. Aretha Franklin devotees watching this scene know that this relationship does not end well, but for those who are not privy to her life story, they can’t help but root for Aretha to get with Ted. Wayans smolders on the screen like we’ve never seen him before.

“[In that scene] I just played the truth of what it was. You start out seeing Prince Charming. Not all bad relationships start out bad, too. I wanted to look at the idea of what kind of man would hit a woman?”

Wayans also wanted to be respectful of the women in the audience when filming this scene and not play Ted as an obvious villain in the story.

“I didn’t want to play the female audience like they are fools. He has a way with words and charm. Ted was a pimp that kept everyone in check, and he did it with abuse. When he and Aretha separate, audiences should be torn about it.”

Later in the film, of course, we learn that Ted is physically abusive to Aretha, when she shows up at her family’s house with a black eye. And yet, the audience doesn’t physically see him hit her, something that was done on purpose to keep the film from being too graphic in nature. Wayans says that scenes were shot, but Tommy felt it wasn’t a right fit for the film.

Ultimately, in order to find Ted’s insecurity within his marriage with Aretha, Wayans got to the truth of it by tapping into self-doubt within himself to put into the performance (“There are things about Ted that are like myself”). While he reached out to the real-life Ted White to learn more about who this man was, he never got a response.

“He’s still alive,” he says. “I tried to reach out, but never heard back, which is okay. I hope that if he sees it, he can be happy about the portrayal.”

Respect is now available on Digital, Blu-Ray, & DVD.