Comedy might be in Damon Wayans Jr.‘s blood, but he almost pursued a totally different career path.

During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Feb. 6, the New Girl alum, 42, looked back at the moment he knew he wanted to follow in his famous family’s footsteps and become an actor.

“I wanted to be an animator growing up for a long time,” he explained. “I used to draw all the time and then one day I accidentally opened one of my dad’s checks and I was like, ‘I want to do that! That’s a lot better.’”

When host Stephen Colbert asked the moment his loved ones realized he was funny, Wayans said, “Everybody’s funny in the family… it’s just like, who wants to go on this ride?”

“You ever seen [the movie] 300, where they look at the babies and then kick them off? That’s kind of what they do in the Wayans family,” he joked. “If they’re not funny, they’re like, ‘Make me laugh!’”

Wayans and his father Damon Wayans Sr. star in Poppa’s House, which debuted on CBS in October 2024. The sitcom follows on longtime radio host Poppa [Wayans Sr.] as he navigates changes at work, challenges at home and continues to parent Junior [Wayans Jr.], who is learning to raise a family after he moves next door.

On Late Night, Wayans Jr. revealed that there was “DNA from our [family] stories” in every episode of Poppa’s House.

“There’s one where he’s trying to teach me how to be a better disciplinarian for my son because my son calls me by my first name,” he explained. “Which he does in real life, my actual son calls me by my first name and it doesn’t bother me but it bothers everybody else.”

“I have six kids so he cuts through calling me Damon,” he said, adding that his son likes to call him by his first name because everyone else calls him Dad. “He gets my attention every time.”

The actor joked, “I pull him to the side now, I’m like ‘Dude, when we’re outside, don’t freaking call me Damon cause people get mad!’”