Alfonso Ribeiro is looking back on his time playing Carlton Banks on the popular 1990s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
The actor, 54, opened up about his iconic dance moves seen on the hit TV show while chatting exclusively with Parade for the September digital cover story.
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“The script said, ‘Carlton dances.’ And then it was like, ‘What is it going to be? What is the song?’” he began. “What I felt was important was, at the time — especially in the early ‘90s — it was like, you were either super corny or you were super cool, right? And there was nothing in between. And I said, ‘Wait a minute, I was the cool kid on Silver Spoons. I was the cool kid on a lot of the things that I’ve done before now. All of a sudden, I’m the nerdy, dorky guy. But why does the nerdy, dorky guy need not be cool another way? And what can those ways be?’”
In a Season 3 Fresh Prince episode, Carlton shows off his moves to Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual,” and the dance became one of the most well-remembered bits on the show. Ribeiro’s moves were inspired by Courteney Cox’s performance in Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” music video and Eddie Murphy’s impression of a white man, among others.
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Noting that two things can be true at once — “you can do a corny dance but still be a good dancer, and you can sing corny songs but still be a good singer” — Ribeiro said he thought long and hard about remaining true to Carlton’s character.
“He wasn’t a good athlete, but could do those things in a way that impressed people, while it still remained true to the character. People start to equate dorky with bad. And I go, ‘Why? Why is the dorky kid not a good athlete? That’s not true,’” he continued. “Just because they’re dorky doesn’t mean that they don’t have physical skills, right? Just because they’re dorky, does that mean that they don’t have rhythm? You see people play that. That’s not what I wanted to play. I wanted to play this three-dimensional character that has so many different things.”
Ribeiro famously portrayed Carlton Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for six seasons from 1990 to 1996. The series also starred Will Smith, James Avery, Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons and more.
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