Don Cheadle talks about his spin-off pilot FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR that hasn’t been picked up

Oscar nominee Don Cheadle (Rwanda hotels, Accident, Avengers: Finale, The Wonder Years) has had a bunch of different roles over the years, showing up in over 100 different movies and shows since the mid-eighties. We know him for his dramas, comedies and being an Avenger, but one role that didn’t pan out as expected was as the character Ice Tray from an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

The character was nearly spun off into his own series on NBC, and Cheadle spoke about it at this week’s People’s Party with Talib Kweli (via Uproxx), where he shared:

“Ice Tray is like the rocket from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He humanized Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in many ways. They were starting to deal with the character of Will Smith and what that family would look like in a real situation.

Cheadle’s character came from and eventually returned to Philadelphia, where Smith’s character had fled from, thanks to his extended family. The episode was the fifth of the first season and set the tone for how the show would continue to grapple with race, privilege, and the Fresh Prince’s mixed feelings about “getting out” of West Philadelphia.

He was also a fun cameo and a fan favorite, played by an actor with serious talent — three facts the producers of Fresh Prince picked up on fast.

“Come to a table read Monday, try Tuesday, Wednesday try, Thursday do it before a living audience. So that Thursday, the producers said “we really want to do a spinoff around your character.” We shot a whole pilot. I was not picked up.

Kweli asked what the name of the series would be and Cheadle said:

“In The House,” Cheadle says with a laugh. “And they kept the name for the LL joint.”

So we’ve never had the chance to see a crossover romance between Ice Tray and Hillary Banks, but Cheadle seems to have done quite well for himself in his career.