Mike Epps returns to Honolulu for a no-holds-barred show

Mike Epps’ status as a major figure in contemporary American stand-up comedy is unquestioned. Where he is with his film career changes from week to week.

First, that on-again, off-again biopic on the late Richard Pryor that people have been talking about since 2014 is currently off again while the producers look for a suitable director. Second, shooting for the long-awaited reboot of “Death Wish” starring Bruce Willis as Paul Kersey, the role popularized by Charles Bronson in the 1970s, wrapped earlier this summer, but Epps’ character, Dr. Chris Salgado, described online as a playboy doctor who is a close friend of Kersey, may have been cut out of the story entirely.

But no matter what happens with “Death Wish” and the Pryor film, Epps fans can count on seeing him in “The Trap,” a contemporary comedy about two brothers who get caught up working together and trying to save their mother’s run-down restaurant. A change in the restaurant’s chicken recipe turns the business around but results in unexpected problems.

“I’m producing it, and I wrote the story,” Epps said last week, calling from Atlanta for a quick, five-minute conversation during a break in shooting. Atlanta-based recording artist/actor T.I. plays the brother who returns to Atlanta after an extended absence to help Epps’ character run the restaurant.

“I thought of the idea — that’s what I do; a lot of times when I’m brainstorming I think of ideas — and I thought this one could be a really cool movie about a family that inherits a restaurant that turns into chaos,” Epps continued. “I called a writer and got the writer to write the script. Once he wrote it, I called T.I. to see if he’d be interested. He read it. He liked it. I called Queen Latifah’s company; they read it, liked it, and they ended up being the financiers. It just came together.”

Epps says “The Trap” will be in theaters sometime in 2018.

Honolulu fans won’t have to wait that long to enjoy his work. The charismatic and decidedly non-PC stand-up superstar returns to Hawaii this weekend for a one-nighter at Blaisdell Concert Hall on Saturday.

If Epps’ performance is anything like his last appearance in Honolulu, at the Hawaii Theatre in 2014, fans can anticipate him to be on stage for a solid 90 minutes sharing his observations on topics including sex, politics, drugs, relationships — and race. In 2014, Epps broached the subject with jokes about the differences between black women and white women.

Anticipate also some celebrity impressions; some comic character sketches that are unapologetically non-PC; maybe a shout-out to the “fat girls” in the audience (Epps has also been known to refer to them as “buffalo girls”); and, certainly, many four-, six- and 12-letter words that can’t be written here.

“I’m coming back to get ’em, man,” Epps said enthusiastically, speaking in general terms and giving nothing away. “I’m coming back out there so, Hawaii, get your tickets. I got new material that I’m working on so when I get there it’s going to be really, really nice.”

The engagement is a make-good on a show Epps had to cancel last year. He’s looking forward to being back in a place that “does some good things” to his state of mind.

“Hawaii is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and when I come out there, man, my mind just goes away. It goes into a beautiful place, and it’s always good. It does some good things for me. Hawaii is like a full charge for me. It charges me up. It’s a feeling that I can’t even describe.”

Epps, 46, has built himself an impressive resume since he moved from Indianapolis to Atlanta in the early 1990s and then broke out as a stand-up comic on the Def Comedy Jam tour in 1995. Epps made his debut as an actor two years later playing a hustler in Vin Diesel’s dark drama “Strays.” Two years after that, Ice Cube saw Epps doing stand-up and invited him to audition for the role of Day Day Jones — in essence, to become his co-star — in “Next Friday.”

Epps was received enthusiastically in “Next Friday,” which came out in 2000. He also appeared in the third film in the series, “Friday After Next,” released in 2002. Television specials, recordings and the title of “Super Bowl Ambassador” for Super Bowl XLVI followed.

He played against type as the primary villain in the 2012 remake of “Sparkle.” It was Epps’ first noncomedic role.

Epps enjoyed similar success with his stand-up career. He wrote “Big Girls” in 2008 in part as a tribute to the “big women” he grew up with — his mother and his aunt, first and foremost. Epps later said that it was his way of saying that bony, skinny and flat is not the only definition of beauty.

“I’ve been painting lately,” Epps said as our call was coming to a close. “I consider myself a painter a little bit. I’ve been doing a little painting and I’ve been doing my stand-up and there’s a show I just wrote that’s probably going to be picked up over at Comedy Central. I don’t know (for sure) that it’s going to be picked up, but I’ve got one in the works right now.

“It’s just always a work in progress, man,” he concluded, referring to his career and life in general. “I’ve been in the business so long and I’m still in the business, still working at it. It’s just one of those things.”