Wayne Brady - Career

Career

Brady's career began as one of the improvisational theater performers in the original (British) version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, along with Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, and host Clive Anderson in 1998 when the last season was filmed in Hollywood, after which he became a regular on the American version, hosted by Drew Carey, which was his first Stateside television exposure. In 2003, Brady won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety, Musical or Comedy Series for his work on the show, the only person to win the award for a television series, as opposed to a special, since Dana Carvey in 1993.

He went on to star in his own ABC variety show in 2001 called The Wayne Brady Show, and a daytime talk show of the same name in 2002, which lasted two seasons and won four Daytime Emmy Awards, two of which went to Brady for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Brady also guest-starred on The Drew Carey Show in 1999 and 2000 to take part in Drew Live and Drew Live II. On the show, Brady played several games taken from Whose Line Is It Anyway? for the two episodes with other characters.

In 2004, Brady joined the long-running Broadway revival of Chicago, playing the role of lawyer Billy Flynn. He also appeared briefly in the final episode of the 2004 season of the comedy Reno 911!. Additionally, Brady guest starred on the Sci Fi Channel's hit series show Stargate SG-1 as the first-prime of the Goa'uld System Lord, Ares. Brady also made a noteworthy appearance on Chappelle's Show, poking fun at his squeaky clean persona.

Brady wrote and sang the theme song for Disney's popular animated series The Weekenders. In 2005, he sang and recorded Jim Brickman's original Disney song "Beautiful" (a cover of All-4-One's 2002 hit "Beautiful As You") and its Christmas version.

In 2006, Brady became the host of TV Land's That's What I'm Talking About, a talk show discussing the role of African-Americans in the entertainment industry. From August 29 – September 29, 2006, Brady hosted the Fox show Celebrity Duets.

On November 27, 2006, Brady made a guest appearance on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, playing James, the gay brother of Neil Patrick Harris's character Barney. His character conflicts with Barney due to his choice to marry and adopt a baby. Brady returned to the show in 2007 in the episode The Yips, in which he is shown to be indirectly responsible for Barney's current superconfident personality, as well as in 2010's Cleaning House episode. He had also appeared as a guest star for the MTV show Nick Cannon's Wild 'N Out. Brady also helps with the Adult Swim TV show Robot Chicken.

Brady has also gone "north-of-the-border" and guest starred in Colin Mochrie's CBC comedy, Getting Along Famously. He has also appeared on the episode "You Don't Know Jack" on the television show Dirt and also guest starred on the show 30 Rock, where he played the role of Steven Black, Liz Lemon's date for The Source Awards. Steven and Liz's relationship quickly ended when they discovered they had nothing in common and Liz accidentally shot him in the buttocks.

Brady was the co-host of the short-lived VH1 show "Vinyl Justice" in 1998. In 2007, ABC Family premiered the movie called "The List". The List is about a man who proposes to his girlfriend. When she says no, he begins to make a list of qualities he believes his "Perfect Woman" should have. He starred in Flirt, a comedy pilot developed for The CW Television Network, which if it had been picked up would have aired in the 2006-07 television season.

Brady guest starred as Julius Rock's gifted younger brother, Louis, in the television series, Everybody Hates Chris, and hosted a singing game show called Don't Forget the Lyrics! on Fox until its cancellation in June 2009. He also performs "Wayne Brady: Making $%!^ up" at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada four nights a week. He was also on two episodes of Kevin Hill. Brady's debut album was released on September 16, 2008. The song "A Change is Gonna Come", a cover of the popular 1964 single by Sam Cooke, earned Brady a Grammy nomination in the Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance category.

Brady started hosting an updated version of the game show Let's Make a Deal for CBS in October 2009, which taped at the Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas and currently tapes in Los Angeles. The show replaced the soap opera Guiding Light, which ended its long-time run. The original host of Let's Make a Deal was Monty Hall, who serves as consultant for the new show. Drew Carey currently hosts The Price Is Right, and thus, both game shows in the CBS daytime lineup (as of May 2010) hold the distinction of being hosted by an alumnus of Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

Brady was the guest host on the May 3, 2010 episode of WWE Raw, where he was involved in an in-ring segment with Edge and Randy Orton, and eventually getting RKO'd by Orton. Later that year, in August, Brady played the role of Tom Collins in a staged production of Rent at the Hollywood Bowl. The production was directed by Neil Patrick Harris.

Brady, together with Jonathan Mangum performed in two episodes of Fast and Loose, a new improvisational series on BBC2 hosted by Hugh Dennis, in January 2011. Then, along with Holly Robinson Peete, he co-hosted the 42nd annual NAACP Image Awards on March 4, 2011.

On May 3 he appeared on Dancing With The Stars as the lead performer in a tribute to James Brown celebrating what would have been Brown's 78th birthday in the Macy's Stars of Dance segment. He has also been a special guest of Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza on GSN, appearing each time with Let's Make a Deal announcer Jonathan Mangum.

Brady made a cameo in the 2011 song "Dedication to my Ex (miss that)" by Lloyd featuring Lil Wayne and Andre 3000, narrating Lil Wayne's section of the song, and he appeared as a special guest star in the March 14, 2012 episode of the TV series Psych along with Greg Grunberg and Mike "The Miz" Mizanin.

Brady also stars in the 2012 ABC improvisational comedy series Trust Us with Your Life.