got me ready for Hollywood. [laughs]

It did.

You have to learn how to take a punch.

[light music]

Hi, I'm Terry Crews, and this is the timeline of my career.

[light music]

- I own everything you got.

- Shut up! - You can't

- Shut up! - Do this by yourself.

- I'm gonna take you and take down right now.

My transition into acting was one of necessity.

I had moved out to LA to get behind the scenes

in entertainment and went broke.

I was out here for about two years

and about a year and 1/2 in, we ran out of everything.

My wife was like, you need a job.

So I literally started sweeping floors.

I started doing security.

One day, when I was bouncing, a friend of mine,

who came through this bar in Burbank where I was working,

he said, hey man, there's an audition going on

for this new show.

I think you'd be great for it.

It was my first audition ever.

Never did anything before that.

And it was a show called Battle Dome.

I went, did a great job, went back home,

and six months later I was still workin'.

Nobody called me.

There was a call-back six months after

I did the first audition.

Lo and behold, they call me back for another call-back.

I go back to this call-back, this time I try it again,

I do all my stuff, and then three months later,

nine months after my first audition, they call me in

and give me the job.

It's a TV show called Battle Dome.

What it was, was like American Gladiators on steroids.

I mean, it was a sports show, game show.

The contestants would come on the show and we would

basically beat the living daylights out of 'em.

There's been nothing like it ever since

because I got sued three times.

There was this huge door that they would use and it would

open the doors of the Battle Dome stage and I would

come out, and every time, right before that door opened,

I thought I was going to die.

I was so nervous, so scared, my stomach, I'm gonna throw up.

But all of a sudden when the doors open and I walked down

into the stage area, all of a sudden, the people,

the screaming, the shouting, it was like this is my thing.

I got into it because I had to.

And it's so funny, I do the same thing now with AGT.

There's this door, but I don't feel like throwin' up.

I feel really good.

And a door opens up and they say, your host, Terry Crews.

It really lets you know that you can grow and you can learn

and life is never static, it's always moving.

[intense music]

You gonna do this here, rookie?

When I did security, I worked for a location manager.

The same location manager who did Training Day.

And he said, hey man, we got this movie we're doin'

with Denzel Washington.

You wanna go down and check it out, it's in LA?

And I said, yeah, I would love to go see.

And I went down there to hang out and the director,

Antoine Fuqua, came up to me and said, hey, you wanna be

in this movie?

Now he didn't even know I was an actor.

He didn't even know what I was doin'.

It was crazy.

I said, yeah.

He said, take your shirt off, go up to the roof.

I'm the guy that's basically flippin' pigeons

in Training Day.

And what happened was, I came back every day for two weeks

while they were shooting that scene and he would place me

in different spots.

I didn't get any money.

I was just an extra.

And I ended up in one of the most iconic scenes

in movie history.

You gotta understand, I was happy.

For me, doing Training Day, it helped me realize that

I had to do everything for the love.

I didn't get any money for Training Day,

but it was so satisfying.

I'm part of something bigger than myself.

This story is so important and so incredible,

I would do it for free.

Pardon me.

Santa musta come early this year,

'cause you were first on my Christmas list.

- Ooh, there it is right there.

- I gotta tell you about the day I got White Chicks.

I actually have it down in my Franklin planner.

Back in the day, that was 2003.

I had an audition for my wife and kids that morning

and I bombed it.

I had the paper in my hand and I was reading the sides

and they were shaking.

You could see all the executives and all the Wayans,

Damon and all the people, they were like ohh,

he really messing up.

And I just said, forget it.

Like, I knew I bombed it.

I got in the car and my agent told me,

he said, hey man, you gotta go across town.

There's this movie called White Chicks

and you gotta go meet Keenen Ivory Wayans.

I was like, okay, I'll go do this movie

and go do the audition for the movie.

It might not pick me, whatever.

I went in there,

and I didn't care anymore.

I was just going and being free and whatever

and Keenen was like, you're in!

When White Chicks came out, I started to get that,

hey, you're that guy from White Chicks.

It's funny, I still get that.

You're the guy from White Chicks.

It was a big adjustment for me becoming famous

because I didn't know where my boundaries were.

We would be out with my family and people would come up

to me and they were like, I wanna autograph.

I was like, yeah sure.

And my kids were like, but Dad, we're eating.

I was like, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay.

And I would sit there for an hour and sign autographs

while my family was sitting there.

And my wife was like, honey, hey, woo hoo, we're here.

And I was like, just this, let me do four more autographs.

It'll be okay.

And I would do this everywhere we went and finally my wife

was like, we're not goin' out with you anymore.

I was like, what?

She was like, you sat there and you sign autographs

with the whole restaurant.

This is crazy.

And I said, but babe, it's my job.

I have to do this.

I mean, they're hiring me.

This is what they're doing.

She said, no they're not.

She said, you are with us, and when you're with us,

you need to stay with us.

And then, I realized something.

She was right.

And I had to start exercising a no.

And that was the big part of our fame, because you realize,

do I owe them an autograph?

And reality is, I didn't.

And the reality is, who did I owe?

I owe my family my time.

I knew you couldn't resist my shit.

I got the shakes that'll make you quake.

I got the fries that'll cross your eyes.

I got the burgers that'll,

I just got burgers.

- I'm all right, thank you.

- Adam went and saw White Chicks and loved it.

Adam saw White Chicks several times in the theater. [laughs]

I had already auditioned for The Longest Yard

in several different roles and didn't get it.

Then I get a call at my house and it's Adam Sandler himself.

And he's like, Terry, I saw White Chicks.

I love what you did.

In fact, I loved it, I kept watching it.

He said, man, look.

We want you to play Cheeseburger Eddie,

and that began the relationship between me and Adam Sandler.

And we've done probably 10 different projects together.

Adam Sandler has been basically a benefactor of my career.

I like to call Keenen Ivory Wayans,

he's the one that started my career, but Adam Sandler

actually gave me a career, for real,

from Blended to Ridiculous Six to Click.

I love this man.

He's my big brother.

Isn't this fun?

- What is this stuff anyway?

- Asbestos, we're gonna save a lot of money

on heat this year.

I wanted to keep doing movies.

I'm a movie star, this is what I do.

And my wife came back to me again and she said, honey,

television is very, very good.

She said, you need to get on a really good TV show,

not some crap, but just some good stuff.

And I came back from doing The Longest Yard,

we were doing a promotional tour, and we actually went

to the Super Bowl with Chris Rock and Adam Sandler.

Chris told me on the way back to the car,

after the Super Bowl, he said, I got somethin' for you.

I got somethin' for you.

I was like, wha, wha?

He said, no, I got somethin', I got somethin'.

I go home and there's a script, literally the next day,

there's a script messengered to my house.

Now they email it.

I'm tryin' to tell you how old that was,

you know what I mean.

Like, it was pre-email. [laughs]

Man, I'm tellin' my age.

Everybody Hates Chris, and I crack up at the title,

because Everybody Loves Raymond was

a very, very popular show at the time.

And I went, Everybody Hates Chris, that's funny.

And I never stopped laughing until I hit the last page.

It turns out, I was the first guy hired

to play Chris Rock's dad.

I'm the only guy that's named after his actual dad, Julius.

Chris actually dedicates his comedic career to his father.

I'm honored beyond belief, and Chris Rock is one

of the greatest comedians of our time.

- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,

the President of America.

[yells]

- Shut up, shut up.

Sit your monkey ass down.

Chill out.

What was wild, is I auditioned for Idiocracy

probably 10 times, 10.

And when I finally got the job, everyone was just like,

man, this is gonna be a career-maker.

This is gonna be it.

And it bombed so bad.

I gotta tell ya, this business, lot of heartache.

Years later, it was almost 10 years after the movie

came out, Idiocracy, I was getting all these messages

from major stars.

Will Ferrell, one of the few interactions I've ever had

with Will, he came up to me and he said,

President Camacho, genius. [laughs]

I was like, what?

Will Ferrell liked my performance in that movie,

one of the comedic gods, to be honest with you.

I never forget when Time Magazine called me back in 2016

about the election, and they were like,

do you think it's becoming Idiocracy?

I'm like, this is Time Magazine askin' me about this stuff.

That's when I knew the influence that movies

and entertainment has on the whole world.

Like everything you do, it just doesn't go away.

It actually just grows and grows and grows.

[intense music]