‘Grand Crew’: Carl Tart Teases ‘Rocky & Apollo Creed’ Montage to Teach Roasting
Q&A
With great power comes great responsibility, and that might be something that Sherm (Carl Tart) and Wyatt (Justin Cunningham) need to keep in mind in the April 7 episode of Grand Crew.
In “Wine & Roasts,” Wyatt doesn’t know how to roast, so Sherm agrees to teach him… but in this matter, there is such thing as going too far. Elsewhere, Noah (Echo Kellum) tries to make things right with a disgruntled customer, Nicky (Nicole Byer) dates a sleep talker, and, of course, there’s wine.
Tart previews the roast and teases what else is coming up for Sherm.
On a scale of one to 10, where are Sherm and Wyatt’s roasting skills at the beginning of the episode?
Carl Tart: Sherm’s roasting skills are 10. Wyatt’s roasting skills are probably 0.7.
How does the fact that Wyatt can’t roast come up?
We get into a little roast battle with a couple guys that we meet out on the street, and I never realized that I’ve never heard him roast before. And I’m like, “oh my gosh, that’s terrible.” That’s when it’s like, “Oh, we got to fix this.” And at first I’m like, “Oh, maybe he’s just having a bad day. Even LeBron misses some shots every now and then,” but then I see it again. I’m like, “Oh boy, this is not good.”
Elizabeth Morris/NBC
It’s a bit surprising that that has never come up before with this group of friends.
Yeah. I think this is not the big roasting group of friends. We clown Noah, we clown other people, but it’s usually just me and maybe Nicole or Aaron [Jennings] clowning. But this is something I’m like, with a real roast battle, which is such a cultural staple, like, “Oh, wow. Oh, this is not good.”
How does Sherm teaching Wyatt how to roast go?
We see it as a real hardcore montage. We got to get into our Rocky and Apollo Creed-like training montage basically, which, we love to see a montage with Sherm and Wyatt, for sure. But we get him right by the end of the episode — maybe a little too right.
I was going to say, how much will Sherm regret teaching him to roast?
Yeah. Yeah, he might’ve gone a little bit too far.
But is he proud of where Wyatt ends up?
I think so. I think he’s proud of him.
On a scale of Wyatt to Sherm, how are you at roasting?
I’m probably an Anthony. I don’t like to be too mean to people when I’m joking with ’em, but if need be, I’ll cook somebody. I’ll sauté ’em up.
How is Sherm’s love life going moving forward? Is he having any luck?
[Laughs] Yeah, it’s always an up and down thing for Sherm. I think the most important thing for Sherm is that he is still finding himself and you got to know who you are before you bring somebody else into that fold. But he is still dating. He’s going to be that guy out here. He’s on the apps. I’m assuming he gets his Hinge on.
How are we going to see him finding himself?
You got to wait and see. There’s more stuff in store, definitely. He gets a couple more business opportunities and things like that and he’s definitely getting it together towards the end.
So he’s finding a business opportunity that’s going to work out long term maybe?
Maybe, Meredith. You trying to get it out of me, I ain’t going to tell you.
Elizabeth Morris/NBC
Do you think he’s closer to being in a place where he’s ready for that?
I think so. I think he’s maturing a lot. I think in the first season where we saw Nicky and him when she was trying to sell the house to the rapper and she kind of got in his head about him kind of being stagnant and being the same guy since high school, it feels like he’s a guy who’s kind of been resting on his laurels his whole life. He’s just got to put that hard work in. I think he’s finally seeing that and doing it now.
What’s been your favorite wine scene to film?
I would say my favorite wine scene has been in first season when the wine went all over my white outfit. That’s definitely been the most fun, for sure. Nothing tops that so far. … That was a rough day for me, but it turned out to be real fun. And a little bit behind the scenes: I had to do that about 12 or 13 times. They were just spraying me with that wine and it was cold. Ooh, it was cold.
Is there anything else you can tease about what’s coming up this season?
We got a lot more hijinks. It feels like we’re getting sillier by each episode, so it is going to be real fun.
What’s been your favorite scene to film so far this season from what we’ve seen?
I think my favorite scene has been when all of us are running and the guys join in with us and be like, “I don’t care why they running, we just fixing run with ’em.” There was a part of that that got cut out that was really funny toward the end. But that was a real fun day, too — we started really racing each other because people get competitive.
Are there any other scenes that have been cut so far that you can share?
There were a couple scenes in the botulism episode that didn’t make it that I was like, “oh, man, that would’ve been fun. I wanted people to see that.” … I can’t remember [details] off the top of my head, but there’s definitely been things where I’ll watch the episode and I go, “oh, wait a minute, we did something else.” Because you got to remember, we filmed this a while back, so been a lot going on since then. There’s always going to be that. The cutting room floor has some good parts, but we film about two hours’ worth of a TV show for 21 minutes, so good stuff gets cut. You gotta be prepared for that, for sure.
Grand Crew, Fridays, 8:30/7:30c, NBC
