The Game wouldn’t be the same without Pooch Hall, but the actor says he wasn’t the creative team’s first choice to play the show’s male lead of “Derwin Davis.”
Hall starred on the sports series opposite Tia Mowry as his partner “Melanie Barnett.”
The half-hour series was created by Mara Brock Akil for The CW in 2006, and aired for three seasons before it was canceled. BET revived the show and it ran for an additional six seasons.
Hall gets candid about the casting process for The Game tonight on TV One interview series, Uncensored.
“I actually didn’t get the role of Derwin, it was Aldis Hodge,” Hall says in a preview clip for the episode.
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Hall added that he thought he was perfect for the role of a professional football player, after playing the sport at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
“It’s so funny in Hollywood, they’ll say they want to cast a football player, and I was like, ‘I played football,'” he said. “Sometimes you go in there as a real football player and they don’t know what a real football player is.”
A spinoff of Girlfriends, the sitcom additionally starred Wendy Raquel Robinson, Hosea Chanchez, Brittany Daniel, and Coby Bell. Lauren London, Jay Ellis, and Brandy Norwood later joined show.
Hodge originally played Derwin on Girlfriends. But something happened and producers decided to take another look at Hall for the spinoff.
Things worked out for Hall and he says being part of The Game “changed my life.”
After leaving the series, he landed a role on Emmy-winning drama Ray Donovan as Daryll, the illegitimate son of Mickey Donovan, played by Jon Voight. Sheryl Lee Ralph portrayed Daryll’s mother.
Hall portrayed Daryll for seven seasons, and has said he was just as surprised as fans when the series was canceled in February 2020.
“I feel like there was so much more story to tell, and even with myself and my character, I was excited to see what was next,” Hall told Urban Hollywood 411 in 2021.
The actor discusses more about his career, including creating his own projects, tonight on Uncensored: Pooch Hall.
The episode airs Sunday, July 21 at 9pm ET/8 C.
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