In some ways, Steve Urkel—the hyper-irritating nerd from beloved ’90s sitcom Family Matters—is a secret style icon, maybe even a prophet. On the show, in between terrorizing the Winslow family, dropping his classic one-liner (“Did I do thaaat?”), and walking like a praying mantis, he rebelled against a scourge of ill-fitting, murky-colored ’90s clothes. With gawky pride, he modeled flood pants, saddle shoes, cardigans, suspenders, rolled-up jeans, and huge tortoiseshell rims, as well as argyle, striped, and checked shirts. Flip through the pages of GQ, and you’ll find Urkelian descendants. The ’90s are resurging with nostalgic fury, so it makes sense that the actor who played Urkel, now-34-year-old Jaleel White, would turn up somehow. And he has—in a Cee Lo music video, no less. Starring as the singer himself, White lip-syncs “Cry Baby” while dancing alongside a ’50s-inflected cast of sharp dressers. Meanwhile, he reps the modernized Urkel look, but grooves with the unstoppable swag of his character’s alter-ego, Stefan Arkel. Still buzzed off a viral high from the clip—it’s garnered more than a million views in two weeks—White chatted with GQ about his dapper music video, the prevalence of Urkel style, and his inventible clothing collaboration.
**GQ: You have some kickass summer style in the new Cee Lo video—the light gray cardigan, plaid tie and pants, a pair of classic Converses—all smart choices. **
Jaleel White: It’s brought on so much stuff now! We’re even in talks for a clothing line. [laughs] It’s crazy, man, seriously. Jerry Leigh Apparel out in California reached out to us after the video. The name of the line is going to be Stefan—it’ll fuse the two looks of the characters I played [on _Family Matters, _Urkel and his alter-ego Stefan), so it’ll be retro-chic. Man, you know, it’s better to be lucky than good, that’s what I always tell people. At the end of the day, you want to be good, but you do need lightning in a bottle.
**GQ: So how did you end up wearing that outfit? **
Jaleel White: It’s funny, I could’ve gone in any direction or done three different outfits, but my director Mickey [Finnegan] asked me a straight, “What do you want?” And I said, “Well, out of everything you’ve got here, these pants are hot. Let’s just build around these pants.”
GQ: They are killer pants. You mentioned the clothing line so casually—any other details?
Jaleel White: It’s going to be an ode to Stefan. When people see the video, they think I’m being Stefan. You have to be respectful of pop culture, because people interpret it in the way they want. There was no intention on Mickey’s behalf to have my character pay tribute to Stefan. It was an ode to the ’50s and about breaking up with a girl. He was like, “I want this to be the happiest break-up song of all time.” So the line is going to pay respect to the ’50s, and more importantly, the casual geek-chic that’s going on right now, but keeping it cool—that’s where Stefan comes in.
**GQ: We know Stefan is the product of Urkel’s Nutty Professor-like experiment, but what were his origins behind the scenes? **
Jaleel White: I got to be honest, be genuine with you. When they asked me to play Stefan, I didn’t want to! I was a kid—16 years old—and as far as being in touch with “swag” or “cool,” I wasn’t. I cared about basketball and knew how to hit the beat of the joke. I asked the ecutive producer why they were doing this character and he was like, “Look, the audience will love it. They need to see a closer side of you.” To me, it was boring, because people didn’t understand the change, the metamorphosis, I went through as Steve [Urkel]. As Stefan, I basically played Jaleel and just cranked up the cheesy factor. But when I first walked through the door in that iconic white suit, to this day, I’ve never heard a scream like that. At that point, nobody knew the Babyface song [that played during the scene] and that the white suit would become as iconic as it is.
