*Michael Perkins wasn’t chasing Hollywood when Hollywood found him. He was a kid on Chicago’s South Side, “just bored just running the same play” at basketball practice at his local YMCA, when his baseball coach walked over with an offer.
“Hey, you want to audition for a movie? I got this white guy here looking for kids for a movie.”
Perkins was all in, for reasons that had nothing to do with the silver screen.
“The only reason I did it was because I was going to get out of practice,” he admits. He had never auditioned before and had no idea what he was doing. But the auditions kept coming, “between seven and 10” of them by his count, and then came silence. “I didn’t hear nothing from it for at least close to a year,” he says.
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By then he’d written it off. Then the call came while he was in New York on his annual summer trip to see his grandmother, days before he started high school. The filmmakers wanted an answer immediately. Perkins, who had made that trip six years running, was ready to say no.
“I’m not going to stop my trip with my nana for this film that y’all could have told me.”
His grandmother had other plans.
“I think this is an opportunity that can take you somewhere. This is something that you can build on,” she told him. She cut the trip short and sent him home to Chicago.
“I will see you again, but you need to go back to Chicago,” she said. It was the last summer he spent with her. Perkins shared that his nana recently passed away, and he speaks of her with obvious love. Radio/TV personality Jazmyn Summers, who sat down with him for EURweb, called his performance a tribute to her.
That performance was Kofi Evans, one of the Kekambas, the ragtag Little League team at the heart of Hardball. The film, directed by Brian Robbins and adapted from Daniel Coyle’s book Hardball: A Season in the Projects, follows a gambling, directionless young man who agrees to coach a team from Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project in exchange for a loan from a friend. Keanu Reeves played that coach, Conor O’Neill.
The film arrived in theaters in mid-September 2001, just days after the September 11 attacks, and topped the box office that weekend, eventually grossing $44.1 million against a $32 million budget.
The film found a lasting audience, including the heartbreaking G-Baby scene that fans still talk about. It also carried a historic footnote: Michael B. Jordan made his on-screen debut in it, playing Jamal.
The soundtrack alone made it a pivotal moment for hip-hop culture bringing together legends like The Notorious B.I.G. and Mobb Deep with rising stars such as Lil Wayne, Bow Wow, and Lil’ Zane. Blending New York rap, Southern hip-hop, R&B, and the emerging crossover sound of the early 2000s, the soundtrack became a cultural snapshot of hip-hop at the turn of the millennium.
Perkins says the maturity to handle it all came from home.
“Growing up in Chicago was very, very difficult but fun,” he says. He was the oldest child of a single mom, which meant “you got to basically take care of everything.” His father was around but didn’t live with the family, “I learned a lot from him as well,” Perkins says. “You’re given a lot of responsibility at a young age, especially as the man of the house, and you’re learning how to be a kid, but have to be an adult at the same time.”
It took time to grasp what he’d been part of.
“As I’ve gotten older and started to actually mature mentally and emotionally,” he says, he came to understand what the film meant beyond the box office. “I don’t like abusing that term,” he says of “for the culture,” “but I realized that I did something for the culture.”
Back then, he notes, “There was no social media,” so there was no easy way to connect with the fans who loved the film. Now, 25 years later, he’s embracing that connection. “It’s just been honestly a true blessing,” he says.
As for Reeves, Perkins says the on-set experience was nothing but love. A self-described “kid from the east side of Chicago,” he was starstruck but determined to play it cool. “Be cool, bro. Don’t show that,” he remembers telling himself. Reeves made it easy.
“The guy is such a down to earth guy,” Perkins says. “He makes you feel like you’ve been working alongside him for a while.”
He recalls a freezing late-night shoot in the station wagon from the film, on a scene that didn’t make the final cut. Reeves asked, “Hey, you hungry?” and treated him to Burger King.
“This was the first time I ever ordered a triple whopper large meal,” Perkins says, adding that he remembers it to this day. When Summers joked that he should slide into Reeves’ DMs and remind him of that historic meal, Perkins laughed it off: “I’ll have my people get with your people.”
After the film, Perkins stepped away from the business for about eight years. High school had him “with 17, 18 year olds” at just 14, and he was tired of being asked what came next.
“I’m waiting to find out too,” he says. He chose an HBCU, Alabama A&M University, where he earned a bachelor’s in business management, followed by an MBA. He wanted to “live my own life, be myself, find myself.”
He returned to acting around 2014 and moved to Los Angeles. These days, he says the industry has changed too much to sit around waiting.
“You can’t wait for this industry no more,” he says, so he’s been building independently for the last five or six years. The biggest challenge, he says, is what you’d expect: “always funding.”
His current slate includes:
- The podcast: He Said It Not Me, co-hosted with fellow Hardball castmate Julian Griffith, who played Jefferson Albert Tibbs. It streams on Perkins’ YouTube channel, Uneducated Genius, which he calls his media company. The name comes from the duo’s friendly clashes. Both are fire signs (Perkins is a Leo), so it goes something like: “No, bro, I’m going to run.” “No, you might as well walk.” Topics range from relationships to politics, and fellow cast members, including the actor who played his onscreen nemesis Andre, have stopped by. Perkins says he started it because “I just wanted to get my voice out more.”
- The screen work: Dirty 30, a short in Tubi’s Black Love Collection, in which he plays the boyfriend of a woman whose big 30th birthday plans are derailed by COVID, and the feature This Thing Called Hip Hop.
- The next project: A thriller limited series with production underway.
And what about the ladies? Perkins says he isn’t “booed up,” but he isn’t exactly taking applications either. When Summers asked if he was in a situationship, he laughed: “I’m in a situation with myself.” His page is public, but “just because you can cross the street don’t mean you can come inside.” And the DMs? “I’m not saying don’t try. It’s just don’t be mad if you’re not successful.”
What does he look for? “Humor. I definitely like a funny woman,” he says, plus smarts and a love of sports. “Your passion for it is just as strong as mine,” he explains, adding that he wants someone who gets the competitiveness of football, basketball, baseball, even track. The deal breaker? “Insecurity. Definitely insecurity,” along with negativity. “Just be optimistic,” he says.
And natural or BBL? Perkins says he’s “definitely more of a natural person” So ladies you can save your money and just be yourself.
Asked what he’d call a movie about his life, Perkins had the title ready: The Independent Asshole. He explains that “I don’t like to say I am, but I don’t mind the title,” because he believes a lot of people are more sensitive to truth than they admit. “You asked for my opinion. I gave you my opinion,” he says. The theme song would be J. Cole’s “Miss America.”
The anniversary celebration then moved to Houston. On September 22, Black Cinema Club HTX presented a Hardball screening at River Oaks Theatre, with Perkins in town to mark the occasion. The Houston-based group, founded in 2025 to celebrate Black films and filmmakers, put the film back on the big screen for a community that has kept it alive. That fits a story about mentorship, community and showing up for others.
It’s a fitting full-circle moment for a kid who almost didn’t take the call.
“Every day I’m embracing it and I’m enjoying it and loving it,” Perkins says.
“As the 25th anniversary tour for Hardball continues, he’s excited about what’s ahead in a new chapter of his career. Now rebranding and represented by The Lotus Firm Public Relations Agency headed by CEO Kashie Johnson, Perkins is already back to a busy schedule of acting projects, press, media appearances, and new opportunities.”
Fans can follow him on Instagram at @thempshow and catch his podcast on YouTube at Uneducated Genius.
Check out the whole fun AF convo in the video above.
Article by Jazmyn Summers. Video by Se7en of Revenue Entertainment. You can catch Jazmyn every morning on “Jazmyn in the Morning “on Sirius XM Channel 362 Grown Folk Jamz. Subscribe to Jazmyn Summers’ YouTube. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
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