Drake Wants To Get Back Into Acting, Become The Next Johnny Carson

Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Drake Wants To Get Back Into Acting, Become The Next Johnny Carson

Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Drake rarely gives interviews anymore, but he sat down with Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari for the latest episode of his Cal Cast podcast — not surprising because Drake has long lingered about Calipari’s Wildcats program as a sort of superfan and/or recruiting tool. As Vulture points out, the conversation veered toward Drake’s plans beyond music, which include a return to acting and, eventually, a late-night TV hosting gig:

My end goal, crazy enough … is Johnny Carson and the appeal of that sexy late-night TV that’s funny. I hope to get there one day where I put on amazing suits every night. Just put on Tom Ford every night, sit with a glass of wine, and laugh with people that I’ve spent years with in the business, or friends of mine, and give people something to watch every night that makes them feel good and laugh.

Given Drake’s genial corny flirtatiousness, it’s actually not that hard to imagine him sliding into a late-night TV gig someday. Hosting the ESPYs, as he did in 2014, is probably good training for such an endeavor, as is his upcoming gig hosting and producing the inaugural NBA Awards. His chances of taking Carson’s actual job by unseating Jimmy Fallon seem unlikely — Fallon is only 42 and will probably be hosting The Tonight Show for at least two more decades barring some ratings collapse or an unprecedented show of public common sense — but surely one of the other networks will have a job opening at some point.

As for the return to acting, Drake says, “I think I’m going to really start to position myself in the acting world and, hopefully, take some great roles,” which would mark his first serious screen acting in almost a decade. He’s best known, of course, for playing wheelchair-ridden basketball star Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi: The Next Generation long before launching his rap career. But other than some Saturday Night Live appearances, he hasn’t done anything beyond cameos since some 2009 guest parts on Canadian sitcoms, right around the time his star-making So Far Gone mixtape was popping. The following year he was slated for a role in the video game Gears Of War 3 but eventually backed out of the part.

Check out the full podcast below.

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