Director Reginald Hudlin: Kid 'n Play fit 'House Party' personas

Writer/director Reginald Hudlin is looking back on his 1990 debut film House Party, on 4K UHD and Blu-ray Tuesday from the Criterion Collection. Hudlin said the characters Christopher "Kid" Reid and Christopher "Play" Martin played reflect their real dynamic.

Their characters are also named Kid and Play. Play hosts a house party on the night Kid gets in trouble at school, so Kid sneaks out of his father's (Robin Harris) house to attend.

In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Hudlin said there was never any consideration of switching roles to have Martin play the teen sneaking out.

"Kid always looked up to Play like 'Oh, he's so cool, he's so smooth,'" Hudlin said. "That's how the characters are designed so that's an easy piece of casting."

The characters of 'House Party'

The Criterion Collection edition includes Hudlin's 1983 short film starring local actors Alton "Elton" Byrd, Clinton "Eastwood" Evans and Allen W. Oliver.

"I was just casting at the local high school," he said. "Okay, that's the best kid. Then when I'm casting the movie, I was like 'Oh, these guys are the best guys.'"

At the house party, Kid 'n Play engage in a rap battle while hitting on classmates. Kid sets his sights on Sharane (A.J. Johnson) and Play on Sidney (Tisha Campbell).

"Kid's kind of an insecure, nerdyish guy," Hudlin said. "Play's cooler but then in a sense of cosmic justice, Kid actually gets the girl. While Play gets girls, he doesn't get the girl he was after. You just want to feel that sense of fairness."

Cosmic justice applied to Kid sneaking out of the house too. Sounds of Harris's Pops whopping Kid with a belt play over the end credits.

"Even though Kid is a good kid, he did sneak out of the house and his dad does punish him," Hudlin said. "These are the complications of life. They seem small. They don't seem significant but the fact is some sense of moral balance that the arc of the universe bends towards justice."

In the Criterion interviews and director's commentary, Hudlin discusses early meetings with Will Smith's then representative, Russell Simmons.

New Line had prevailed against Smith in a lawsuit over his Fresh Prince rap "A Nightmare on My Street," but Hudlin could tell he wasn't passionate about House Party. Hudlin never wrote a draft for Smith.

"I only wanted to do it with them if they wanted to do it because you don't want someone to star in your movie just because they lost a lawsuit," Hudlin said. "That's a prescription for a very unenthusiastic performance. After that conversation, that was the end of that."

The music of 'House Party'

The film's soundtrack includes songs by Public Enemy, L L Cool J and Kid 'n Play. Hudlin recalled one artist too pricey to license for a small 1990 film.

"Bobby Brown, who was hot as can be, he had a great record and we were trying to get that but it was too high priced for us," Hudlin said. "I don't even know if it got released. It was an original."

In the commentary, Hudlin mentions wanting Kid 'n Play to rap to "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)" from the musical Annie Get Your Gun. That also proved too expensive to license, so the scene was deleted and is still not included in the Criterion edition.

"We had already recorded that song so we just cut out that chorus and it still works," Hudlin said, calling it "a very expensive deleted scene, hence it has not ever existed."

Hudlin is pleased with the songs in House Party, especially the Full Force song. Full Force members played the high school bullies who pursue Kid all night.

"If there's a song that represents House Party, it's that Full Force record, 'Ain't My Type of Hype,'" Hudlin said.

When filming the dance scenes though, actors playing the partiers often danced to no music, so Hudlin could record dialogue. Sometimes the music would switch to a click track so they could follow the beat.

"They were kids and they loved to party and dance so they got right to it," Hudlin said.

'House Party' launched Hudlin's career

House Party launched Hudlin's career in Hollywood. Eddie Murphy hired him to direct 1992's Boomerang after Murphy saw House Party.

"Eddie and I are the same age but I feel like he was on SNL and I had a bed time," Hudlin said.

While developing Boomerang, Hudlin also produced the animated Bebe's Kids. Based on Harris's standup comedy, it was supposed to be a vehicle for Harris, who died in 1990 just weeks after House Party opened.

"I thought that would be a tragedy to not tell this story and do it as a remembrance of him," Hudlin said. "We were doing Boomerang and Bebe's Kids simultaneously and they were in theaters at the same time. There were marquees in Times Square which we had two movies."

Later in his career, Pam Grier introduced Hudlin to Quentin Tarantino. Hudlin produced Tarantino's 2012 Django Unchained, which began with a conversation about movies about slavery.

"I just said, 'Well, look. There's only one great movie about slavery. It's Spartacus. Until you make a movie like that, I don't care,'" Hudlin said. "He later said that our conversation was the seed that inspired Django, which was an incredible compliment."

Kid N Play made two more House Party movies without Hudlin. New Line continued to make made-for-video sequels, and a remake was released theatrically in 2023 with LeBron James.

"When we were shooting the movie, we knew you could do Dorm Party and Work Party and Old Age Home Party," Hudlin said.

House Party 2 did take Kid N Play to college and House Party 3 was about Kid's bachelor party, but that concluded the series.

"We could track their lives over the years so it was too bad that we didn't get a chance to do that," Hudlin said. "You just keep going. First baby born, you could just keep going until they're in rocking chairs."