Put Terry Crews in a box, and he’ll pec pop out of it.
The high-energy and muscle-bound former NFL player has hosted NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” since 2019, a job he says he would do for free, despite his wife’s issues with that sentiment. (“She’s like, ‘Stop saying (that)!’ But it’s the power that you have to change a life instantly.”) He acts, and is just waiting for the Wayans brothers to greenlight a “White Chicks” sequel. (“When they’re ready, I’ll be ready.”) Crews, 54, is also an author, and he draws and paints.
Crews adds to his multifaceted resume a new role as CEO and co-founder of Super Serious, a creative venture focused on providing entertainment through features, TV series, music, concerts, art, books, events, original and branded content. The company’s first project premieres on CBS’ telecast of Sunday’s Tony Awards: A 90-second commercial that’s part of a summer campaign for Impossible Foods, which makes plant-based meat substitutes.
“Creativity is the best world to be in, because there’s no end,” Crews tells USA TODAY. “It’s always wonderful. It’s a new thing every day.”
His new gig is one he set his eyes on since the Flint, Michigan native moved to Los Angeles in 1997.
“My whole mission was to be a creative,” he says. “I was writing. I had ideas, I had productions that I had in my mind. I wanted to direct. I wanted to do all of that.”
He submitted his art portfolio to DreamWorks, Disney and Hanna-Barbera, he says. But a shift from hand-drawn to computer animation edged Crews out. He was working as a security guard for productions when a friend asked him to audition for “Battle Dome,” a short-lived (1999-2001) “American Gladiators”–style competition.
“I remember asking my wife, ‘People say I should act. You think I should?’” Crews says. “She was like, ‘We got nothing else! Go ahead!’” Crews booked the job and kept adding to his list of credits, which include features “Friday After Next” and “The Longest Yard,” four seasons as the dad on UPN’s Chris Rock origin comedy, “Everybody Hates Chris,” and eight seasons as Sgt. Terry Jeffords on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
“Acting is a mistake,” he says. “But this Super Serious is the reason why I moved to Los Angeles in the first place.”
“I was pitching things the whole time and people were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, but you’re an actor,” he says. “So I waited, and I just kept acting and kept performing and kept doing what I did. Got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and still had not done what I came to Hollywood to do.”
Crews says that about nine months ago, Matt O’Rourke, whom he worked with on Old Spice commercials, asked him to partner on Super Serious. For Crews, it was an instant yes. “Now, there’s no going back,” he says. “To be on this side, on the creative end, it feels organic. It feels beautiful. It feels like a real natural progression to my career.”
O’Rourke introduced Crews to Paul Sutton, the company’s chief operating officer.
“Matt and I are the creative types,” says Crews. “Our meetings have to be stopped … because we can go forever. But Paul is this brilliant business mind that we needed.”
Having just three employees allows the company to be nimble, says Crews. “We are just doing this because we love it, and we don’t have a giant overhead,” he says. “We’re not a Titanic. We’re a canoe and we can move and flow and go and back up if we need to.”
In the Impossible Foods spot, a man who is grilling food walks audiences through meat’s past via song, starting with a caveman eyeing a mammoth. Impossible Foods chief marketing officer Leslie Sims really wanted a musical, Crews says. The company also wanted to avoid shaming customers into buying the meatless products or passing judgment on meat eaters.
‘AGT’:Simon Cowell requests encore from blind Golden Buzzer singer Putri Ariani
At Austin’s SXSW in March, Super Serious orchestrated the return of President Camacho, Crews’ character in the 2006 sci-fi comedy “Idiocracy,” starring Luke Wilson, as a way to explore reprising the role in a TV series or movie he’d produce. Crews also says the company has ideas for game shows.
“There’s no limit is what we’re trying to say,” he says. “Where I’m from, people tend to always get put in boxes… It was like, ‘OK, Terry Crews, this is who you’re going to be. This is what you are. This is how far you can go.’ And I wanted to break all of that.”
Simon Cowell teases‘jaw-droppingly good’ talent on ‘AGT’ Season 18 (and losing his voice)
