As Bresha Webb has traveled through Hollywood, she’s decorated an impressive passport, amassing stamps of approval from a handful of legends. Her very first stamp came in 2010 formed as Imunique Jefferson, her breakout role on TV One’s Love That Girl!, produced by Martin Lawrence.
Filling the shoes left empty by Sheneneh Jenkins in 1996, with Imunique, Webb enacted a more refined and less offensive version of the ‘round the way girl—a humanized hood chick reminiscent of the carefree black girls that thanklessly invent and reinvent popular culture. In producing a show that includes such a character, celebrating that type of black woman instead of mocking her, Lawrence managed to correct his previous mistakes. Webb’s hand in that correction speaks to the prowess of her comedy—adding to the repertoire of an artist thought to already be playing with a full deck is typically a task much too large for most to complete.
“Martin was at the top of my list growing up,” she confesses. “I was so nervous when I got to work with him and do a scene with him. He requested to do a scene with me, and I felt so much pressure because Imunique is a character that I love that’s so sassy and so crazy. I felt so much joy playing her, but it was so much pressure because I was still learning from the greats. And that was my first time working with one.”
As the show’s lead actress, Tatyana Ali, departed after the end of it’s third season, Lawrence and the rest of its braintrust left Love That Girl! in Webb’s hands for its final 33 episodes. While the show concluded its run after four seasons, its ending didn’t dampen Webb’s standing as an emerging comedic force for fans or other players in the industry.
Speaking to those players, she notes “having worked with Mike Epps on Meet The Blacks, and Kevin Hart—I just feel very honored that they trust me to be funny with them. They trust my comedy and what I bring to it, and they just let me go.”
In 2014, Webb joined the cast of Kevin Hart’s Keep It Together, starring alongside Romany Malco. For the ABC pilot inspired by Hart’s divorce, Webb and Malco captured the spirit of his on-stage comedy in a 22-minute sitcom.
While the pilot was never picked up, Marlon, premiering Wednesday night (8/16) at 9 PM on NBC, presents a unique (no pun intended) second chance for Webb to make divorce something that’s network-friendly funny.
Also inspired by a comedian’s marital woes, the show features Marlon Wayans as the eponymous lead, alongside Essence Atkins as his ex-wife Ashley and Webb as her best friend Yvette.
On the process of working with yet another legacy act, Webb explains “Marlon has so much success and is so blessed because he continues to push everyone around him to do their best. He gets involved in the middle of the scene. He’ll throw a wrench in the scene in front of a live audience just to keep us on our toes and see what we’re going to do.”
“We’re always playing tennis in a way,” she continues. “I’m just honored that these legends love to play tennis with me. I can’t wait to work with so many others—like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock. And the women. Tiffany Haddish is one of my great friends. And Regina Hall. There are some women in this game right now that are killing it.”
Considering Webb’s lineage as an artist, descending from the Baltimore School for the Arts, most famous for producing creative savants Tupac Shakur and Jada Pinkett-Smith, one shouldn’t be surprised by how far she’s ventured—nor by the tunnel through which she views her destination.
“I’ve been saying I wanted to be an actress since I was four years old,” she admits. “An Academy Award-winning actress.”
“I was very focused…possessed with purpose. I never felt like anything else was ever an option…I just couldn’t do anything else. With school, I wasn’t interested unless some type of art was a part of it.”
Through fruitful lessons taught in school and on set, everything she’s learned on her own and from predecessors seems to have culminated this kinetic energy that’s afforded her a dominoing line of opportunities. Where the last domino will fall seems entirely up to her.
Marlon premieres Wednesday night on NBC.
