Leslie Uggams Wants to Keep You Guessing

Almost two weeks ago, Deadpool & Wolverine’s very famous power players—Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Kevin Feige, and director Shawn Levy—hosted a panel celebrating the film at San Diego Comic-Con. (Think ginormous room, screaming fans, and those creepy Wolverine popcorn buckets under every seat.) About five minutes in, there was…an interruption. It was a video message from actress Leslie Uggams in character as Blind Al, aka Deadpool’s cocaine-loving roommate.

“Can we skip the bullshit and just show the damn movie?” she asked. Let me tell you: Reynolds and Jackman earned roars from the crowd, but the sight of Uggams made the crowd lose its collective shit.

“Ryan is a genius,” Uggams, eighty-one, tells me over the phone, nearly a week after Deadpool & Wolverine’s premiere. “[Deadpool’s creative team] comes up with such incredible ideas—and Blind Al is so popular with the fans that they wanted a way where I could be there. So they came up with an idea of me doing that.”

Uggams has played Blind Al since 2016’s Deadpool, trading insults and taking down Reynolds’s Wade Wilson like nobody’s business. Alongside her role as Betty Pearson on Prime Video’s Fallout, her Marvel Cinematic Universe antics are just the latest notches in an impressive Hollywood career. The highlights include but certainly aren’t limited to: Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for her role in 1977’s Roots, a featured-performer spot alongside Ella Fitzgerald at the Apollo Theater, and a downright heartbreaking turn as the matriarch in last year’s American Fiction.

With Deadpool & Wolverine cruising to a $1 billion-plus gross at the global box office, Uggams talks about Blind Al’s future, Fallout season 2, memories from her Apollo days, and meeting Dogpool. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Jamie McCarthy//Getty Images“She’s just a lovely, lovely, lovely dog,” says Leslie Uggams of Peggy, who plays Dogpool in Deadpool & Wolverine. “You know, when you pick her up, she looks like she’s light. But she packs muscle!”

ESQUIRE: I can’t imagine how crazy your past two weeks have been.

LESLIE UGGAMS: I’m so happy that we got to do a third one. The fans have really come out in force to see the film. I’ve had a lot of families who have stopped me and said, “Oh, I took my daughter [to see the film].” I knew fathers took sons, but this is the first time that I’ve seen more families taking their daughters as well. They’re loving it. And, of course, Dogpool. She steals the movie. [Laughs.]

I saw that you hosted a screening with Dogpool.

She’s just a lovely, lovely, lovely dog. You know, when you pick her up, she looks like she’s light. But she packs muscle!

My Deadpool & Wolverine rankings have Blind Al at number one, with Dogpool at a close second.

Oh, I love Blind Al. She says exactly what she thinks.

A big part of why Blind Al works is your performance, obviously, but it’s also your chemistry with Ryan Reynolds. Tell me about filming those insult-heavy scenes with him.

Well, when you finally get the secret script, you finally find out exactly what is happening. Even though there’s a guideline kind of thing, we don’t just settle on that. You know how his brain works—he’ll come up with ideas and say, “Leslie, do you mind saying this?” And I always go, “No, let’s go for it!” We have the rhythm and chemistry that makes it work.

I like to stand right there at the cliff and say, ‘I’m going to jump, and we’ll see where I land.’In your career—and especially on the Deadpool press tour—you always seem to have so much fun. What’s the secret to making sure you do what you love in life?

I like challenges—and I also like to be different. Back when I started getting popular when it came to my singing, I never wanted to just settle for that. I wanted to see the next thing. I like to stand right there at the cliff and say, “I’m going to jump, and we’ll see where I land.”

So I keep my fans guessing all the time, because they never know what I’m going to do next. And then they go, “Oh my God, I can’t believe that was you!” That happened the first day Deadpool came out.

That was exactly how I felt when I saw you on Fallout.

That’s another thing that’s been so exciting to do. I always get a lot of fan mail. They love Blind Al—and all of a sudden, now they’re talking about Betty. I had one guy saying, “I’m not sure if you’re good or if you’re bad.” And that’s exactly what I want them to think.

Will we learn more about Betty in season 2?

Oh, I think so. Oh, yeah. Remember, she’s the one right now that has been pushing the buttons. Kyle [MacLachlan, who plays Hank MacLean] is not there and she’s been quietly taking over. Remember, they had that election. And all of a sudden, Betty wound up being the boss.

I’m ready for you to become the political mastermind of that series.

There’s a lot to learn about Betty.

Marvel Entertainment“Oh, I love Blind Al,” says Uggams of her Deadpool counterpart. “She says exactly what she thinks.”

Is it harder to perform at the Apollo or trade insults with Deadpool?

Oh my God. Well, when you go to the Apollo, you’d better be on your A game, because the audience will let you know whether they think you’re good or not. I learned my craft playing the Apollo Theater, because you’re not only working with great people but [you have to figure out] how to get the audience on your side. I worked with a comic at the Apollo, and his jokes weren’t so good. So people used to bring groceries to the Apollo, and you’d see it flying on the stage. It was crazy. Absolutely crazy.

I have to ask about the Deadpool scene where you rattle off cocaine euphemisms. What’s your favorite one? I have to go with “Do you wanna build a snowman?”

[Laughs.] That’s the one. Because he’s trying to get his life together and I’m not helping.

What’s next for Blind Al? Maybe she can room with another superhero.

Yes! Maybe her glasses have some superpowers that we haven’t seen yet.…

I love that.

If not that, the cane.

We could have both.

A lot of possibilities.

It’s wild how many people have seen this film.

I started getting mail from China and Japan. And I have relatives in Australia, because my husband’s Australian. We have a daughter and grandchildren over there. I have one niece who is so into Deadpool—she could not wait [to see it]. She kept asking me, “When are you doing a third one?” So I know she’s going to be in seventh heaven.

Is there anything I missed?

Well, it was so wonderful to have Hugh Jackman, who comes from theater. The fact that he missed the character and called Ryan up to say, “I want to do this” is incredible. Because I was wondering, Are we ever going to get a chance to do the third one? And he made it happen when he called Ryan and they said, like they say in the movie, “Let’s go!”

That’s what we’ll work on next—getting you and Hugh on Broadway together.

I told him, “Listen, we gotta sing somewhere together.” He said, “It sounds like a good idea.” I’d love for that to happen.