Javone Prince
Javone Prince is an actor, born 1975.
Ask about Javone Prince and the answer is Jerwayne. PhoneShop, from 2010, is the show that made him, and the comedy career around it is a British one built in sketch and children's television: Horrible Histories, Sorry, I've Got No Head, Little Miss Jocelyn, and Lethal G in The Dumping Ground. He trained at LAMDA and has done a substantial amount of stage work, including Measure for Measure, Titus Andronicus and Richard III.
The screen record is short and worth being honest about. There is Alvin in Still Open All Hours, Mr Joy in Hank Zipzer, Anthony in the Apple comedy Trying, a puppet voice in Love Monster, Jack in the 2005 drama Manderlay, and Hans the music producer in Yesterday. The two biggest films on the list, Cruella and No Time to Die, cast him as a security guard in both, which is a fair summary of how British features have used a comic actor with real stage credentials.
What he is good at is rhythm. Jerwayne's dialogue only works if the actor commits to a very specific street-patter cadence and never winks at it, and Prince plays him as a man with total confidence in a worldview that is entirely wrong. That refusal to signal the joke is why the show still travels.
Movies (4)
TV (6)
Where to start with Javone Prince
PhoneShop first, and mostly. It is the reason to be on this page, a workplace comedy with a genuinely strange voice, and Jerwayne is the character everyone quotes.
After that the pickings are slim but not empty. Trying gives him a warmer, more ordinary part in a good-natured comedy drama, and it is the best evidence that he can do straight scenes. Still Open All Hours is gentle, old-fashioned BBC comedy and he fits it fine.
Yesterday is the one where a blink-and-miss role actually lands, since a music producer is exactly the kind of self-important type his timing suits. Manderlay is by far the most serious film on his record and worth a look if you want to see him in something austere. Cruella and No Time to Die are for completists only, and he is playing a doorway in both.