Florida A&M University alumnus comedian/actor Roy Wood Jr. is expected to leave the audience in stitches when he addresses the 2021 Homecoming Convocation at the Al Lawson Multipurpose Center and Teaching Gymnasium at 10:10 a.m. Oct. 29.
“Roy Wood Jr.’s work as a humorist, comedian and actor is a breath of fresh air in these tough times,” said FAMU President Larry Robinson, Ph.D. “We are looking forward to having him as our speaker. Homecoming Convocation is a big stage, and Roy Wood is a big character.”
Wood, who began his comedy career in 1998 while he was a journalism student at FAMU, sees his assignment as a high honor.
“FAMU is my home, it will always be home and to have the opportunity to come home and speak in any capacity and share my journey and whatever wisdom I may have stumbled upon along the way, it’s not an opportunity that I take lightly,” Wood said. “I look forward to walking the campus with my fellow Rattlers and seeing all that my out-of-state tuition paid for…also Guthrie’s,” – he added, alluding to his favorite Tallahassee chicken joint. He earned a bachelor’s in broadcast journalism in 2001. Being a Rattler shaped his career.
“As the son of a FAMU grad and a former FAMU professor, being here was hands down the best thing that ever happened to me and to speak at Homecoming Convocation,” said Wood, a Comedy Central The Daily Show correspondent. “The only higher honor would be to return to this campus as a professor, but I’m pretty sure you need more degrees than the one I possess. LOL.”
Career journey
In 2006, Wood debuted on network television on The Late Show with David Letterman. Two years later, Wood appeared on HBO’s historic Def Comedy Jam and was selected by America as one of the top three finalists on Last Comic Standing on NBC. He has appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyer, Conan, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He also performed on numerous USO Tours for our troops stationed everywhere from Guam to Iraq to the Philippines.
Wood joined The Best F#@ing News Team in 2015 as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy-nominated The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
Wood and Comedy Central continue their long-standing relationship with his collaboration on two podcasts–Roy’s Job Fair and Beyond the Scenes–as well as a three hour-long stand-up special airing later this year.
Wood’s first Comedy Central one-hour stand-up special, Father Figure, debuted in 2017, the same year he was named the new host of Comedy Central’s storytelling series, This is Not Happening.
His second Comedy Central one-hour stand-up special, Roy Wood Jr.: No One Loves You, which debuted in 2019, remains the network’s highest-rated original stand-up premiere.
Before The Daily Show, Wood co-starred for three seasons on TBS’s Sullivan & Son, and he remains a regular guest on various ESPN shows and the MLB Network.
Philanthropy
Wood’s philanthropy is unstinting. During the global pandemic, he has spent time raising money for the displaced staff of comedy clubs through tipyourwaitstaff.com and Laugh Aid.
In his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, Wood’s philanthropic endeavors include supporting Workshops, Inc., which enriches lives by helping people with disabilities and other employment barriers achieve their vocational potential. The DUBS Baseball Academy is an investment in sports to change lives. STAIR of Birmingham, where tutoring empowers students to read better and dream bigger. Also, I See Me, Inc., where the mission is to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline by increasing the literacy rates in children of color by engaging them in literature that reflects their culture and image.
His executive producer credits include the PBS documentary The Neutral Ground, an HBO Max project 1% Happy and an untitled medical field comedy for NBC.
Wood will executive produce, write, and star in a still untitled single-camera comedy about the National Guard in the works at FOX, with Denis Leary producing it for television.
In theatres, Wood will star alongside Jon Hamm in the long-awaited Fletch remake, Confess, Fletch, currently in production. With the unrelenting pandemic, the last 18 months have been tough. Wood sees humor as an antidote to the pain and turmoil in daily life.
“COVID-19 is a terrible scourge on us today, but so is sadness and depression,” Wood said. “Comedy has been a great tool to be able help fight this for me.”
