Funny Business on Brothers Set

Comedians Bill Bellamy and D.L. Hughley had a field day abusing Young and the Restless hunk Shemar Moore on the set of their new film The Brothers (opening Friday). "You'd come out of a room, and women would be screaming at Shemar," recalls Hughley, star of the UPN sitcom The Hughleys. "He had to suffer for that."

Hughley — who also appeared in last summer's surprise hit The Original Kings of Comedy — adds that Moore didn't get all the attention. "They'd scream at me too," he insists, "to tap him on the shoulder."

Dubbed Refusing to Exhale by director Gary Hardwick, The Brothers follows four lifelong pals — Bellamy, Hughley, Moore and Morris Chestnut (The Best Man) — as they tackle issues of love, sex and friendship. But off-screen, there wasn't much soul-searching going on. "We shot the film Monday through Friday, and on Friday, Bill and D.L. were off on a plane to perform their comedy routines, so [during the week] they would pretty much work on their jokes," explains Chestnut. "Bill and D.L. were there to provide comedy, so it was pretty much a sense of just sitting back and letting them do what they're going to do."

And for Moore, that meant coming to terms with the fact that he was going to be a walking punchline. "Morris said, 'Let me give you a lesson about being around comedians: Less is more,'" shares the actor, who last year won an Emmy for his work on Y&#038R. "They will take all your material and clown you — and that's exactly what they did."

All joking aside, Chestnut admits that the quartet "really did form a pretty strong bond as friends." Even the perpetually picked-on Moore admits he "had a ball. It was great experience."