‘Juwanna’ star Núñez heads back to ‘Skool’

Kam Williams

Miguel A. Núñez Jr. was born in New York City on Aug. 11, 1964. The Dominican American actor got his start in the mid-1980s with parts in horror flick sequels such as “Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning” and “The Return of the Living Dead.”

After getting his feet wet, Núñez appeared in a host of higher-profile flicks like the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” the buddy action flick “Lethal Weapon 3,” the Frankie Lymon biopic “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” “Scooby-Doo,” and a trio of Eddie Murphy films — “Harlem Nights,” “Life,” “The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps” — before finally landing that elusive title role.

He starred in 2002’s “Juwanna Mann,” in which he played a basketball star banned from his league for lewd behavior that disguises himself as a woman and play in the female professional basketball league — one of those cross-dressing comedies that these days seem to serve as something of a rite-of-passage for many black actors.

Since that first starring turn, Núñez has appeared in a rash of mediocre movies, reuniting with Murphy for 2002’s lukewarm “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” and starring alongside Robin Givens in 2005’s “Flip the Script.” Lately, he has made more of a splash on TV, enjoying recurring roles as Zach on the NBC sitcom “Joey” and as Detective Sam Sullivan on the late WB’s short-lived “Tarzan.”

Núñez recently took a few moments out of his schedule to muse about his latest supporting role as Darnell Jackson in “Kickin’ It Old Skool,” a new comedy starring Jamie Kennedy as a man stuck in a cultural time warp after emerging from a coma more than 20 years after hitting his head while breakdancing.

What’s the premise of “Kickin’ It Old Skool?”

The movie is about a group of friends who are a really good breakdancing team called the Funky Fresh Boys. This is the early 1980s. You see them at about age 9 or 11 when they get challenged by this little preppy group of dancers. And one of the guys, Justin, played by Jamie Kennedy, does his famous spin move, spins off the stage, hits his head and goes into a coma. He comes out of the coma in 2006.

What happens next?

Because of his situation, he has accumulated a really high hospital bill. His parents are teetering on bankruptcy on account of the investment in keeping him alive all those years. So, he enters us into a dance contest, but it’s not the dances of the ’80s, and we have to come out of retirement, so to speak, to enter it. We’re like old men now, 35, and we’re going up against these really young hot krumpers, breakers, spinners … I mean, it’s like super high-octane fast. Some of the best dance moves and routines put together that you could ever hope to see. This movie is really hot.

Tell me a little about your character.

I’m Darnell Jackson. I’m like the oldest in the group because I flunked two years of school. We all hung out back then, but I’m married now. I got kids, a bitchy wife [played by Vivica A. Fox], two kids that’s not mine. My life is like … doo-doo. I’m coming up with all these crazy inventions, trying to better myself, you know, make a better living for me and my family.

And what is your relationship to Justin?

I’m Justin’s best friend. When he comes out of the coma, he comes to me first to help get the group together, because he knows that if he rallies me, I’m going to rally everybody else, and that’s exactly what happens. So I’m his best friend, and kind of like the conscience of the group. I guess we all are, because we all have our own quirky sense of humor and sense of style.

What’s Darnell’s motivation?

Basically, I’m just an inventor. I’m a businessman. Straight up, I’m a businessman, and I’m trying to come up with all these different inventions, like the people who came up with the Slinky. I feel like I can do the same thing. So, I come up with all these different inventions, figuring if I throw enough doo-doo against the wall, sooner or later, something’s going to stick. This dance contest means something to me, because it can give me the seed money to start producing my own inventions. That’s who I am. I’m a businessman.