*“House Party” star A.J. Johnson has spilled to Page Six some behind-the-scenes secrets from the iconic film.
“The clothes that you saw in the movie were all ours. It was that low-budget — we all made $4,000, flat,” she explained. “The movie became so popular Burger King called me and Play to do a commercial. We made more money on the Burger King commercial than we did in the movie!”
Johnson also choreographed the film’s dance battle, explaining: “I choreographed the dancing scene for me and Tisha [Campbell] in ‘House Party.’ There was no dancing. They didn’t even know what a dance battle was. I went to Spelman, I am a Delta, and that was all we did at parties — it was always a dance battle. Tisha and I literally battled, did our steps, and then Kid was like ‘Oh hell no.’ Reginald [Hudlin] loved it and said we got to film it.”
Peep the battle scene via the clip below.
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Here’s another fun fact about Johnson that many don’t know… she gave Rosie Perez and Jennifer Lopez their big breaks in Hollywood, as A.J. was the original choreographer for the Fly Girls on “In Living Color” — but had to quit the gig after landing the role in “House Party.”
“The schedules conflicted between ‘Living Color’ and ‘House Party,’ so [the show’s creator, Keenen Ivory Wayans,] was like, ‘You have to choose.’ And I said, ‘OK. I’ll play the lead in a movie,’ ” she told Page Six. “And I said, ‘I’ll do you one even greater — I’ll find you my replacement so you’re not missing anything.’”
Johnson called Perez, who she knew “from dancing in the city” and told her about the job. “But then Keenen said, ‘And I want you to replace yourself as a dancer as well.’” So she called Perez again and said, “‘Rosie, bring the heavy chick — the Puerto Rican girl’ — and that was Jennifer.”
Meanwhile, as noted by Page Six, the one part of “House Party” that’s stuck with Johnson is her character’s link with red Kool-Aid.
“I never had Kool-Aid in my life, so I did not know what purple or red meant. Even though I’m from Jersey, we didn’t drink Kool-Aid, we did fruit juice. [As a] matter of fact, I called Keenen Ivory Wayans when I was a fly girl because we were friends and I asked him, ‘What does purple or red mean with Kool-Aid?’ He said ‘oh my God, you gotta be kidding.’ Tisha Campbell ended up explaining it to me. She said well, you don’t say the flavors, you say the color of it. ‘
“I do not drink Kool-Aid to this day because I get so many comments from it from fans.”
Peep the Kool-Aid scene via the clip above.
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