Chris Tucker recently stopped by Audacy’s V-103 studios in Atlanta to chop it up with Big Tigger and Shamea Morton all about what he’s been up to, and what he’s got coming up including the movie Air, possible sequels for Friday and Rush Hour, and more.
LISTEN NOW: Chris Tucker talks his role as Howard White the new movie Air
Discussing the soon to be released, Ben Affleck directed film Air, starring an impressive cast including Affleck himself, Matt Damon, Marlon Wayans, Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, Chris Messina and more, Chris admitted, “it was so much fun.”
“The way the movie came about it was great, cause I’m playing a friend of mine… he really helped me out. I had to really embody him, you know, get his dialect. His name is Howard White, that’s my part in the movie.”
A typically comedic actor, Tucker brought his humor to his character as Howard, who Chris described as a “funny” man as well.
Howard originally was not a character in the film. Chris revealed he was a approached by Ben Affleck who plays Phil Knight, the owner of Nike. “He came to me and and said ‘you can do whatever you wanna do, I just wanna work with you,’ so I wrote all my part in the movie. And it was fun, cause I do it anyway, all the varieties, the Rush Hour. I write a lot of the dialogue… so that was the fun part about it, and I did it with my son.”
The movie, besides being entertaining and telling of a “fascinating story” according to Tigger, about Michael Jordan’s revolutionary partnership with Nike. As Tucker noted, it’s also “a master class of branding.”
Despite being different from his usual film roles, Chris really enjoyed working on Air for many reasons. “I loved it," he expressed. “I love basketball, I love the business aspect, I love Jordans, owning your own stuff.”
“This is good for young Black men to know that you could start a business, and you could own your own business. You don’t have to own 100% of it, if it’s successful you could own 10% of it, 5% of 10 different businesses, and make it 100%. And really have your freedom to do whatever you wanna do, so I love that part about it.”
Chris, Tigger and The Morning Show crew continued on discussing the impressive story that Air tells. To hear it all, listen to the clip above.
Admittedly rising to fame rather quickly as a young comedian and actor, from Def Jam, to Friday and the Rush Hour franchise, Chris made a bold and brave move and decided to take a step back, travel the world and see what else he could do.
LISTEN NOW: Chris Tucker talks possible sequels for Friday and Rush Hour
After a certain point “I knew it wasn’t about me anymore, because when I grew up I wanted to be the biggest comic, biggest comedian, biggest actor like Eddie Murphy, but then I started traveling and seeing like poverty to an extreme and seeing different things,” making him realize “ I wanna do more, before doing more with his career.”
Chris came to the realization, “the best way to do that is to take a step back and then come back and then I can do whatever I wanna do,” which ladies and gents, brings us to now.
Coming back, “this is the type of stuff I wanna do," Chris admitted referring to his part in the movie Air, “stuff that I’m interested in."
“These types of movies have so many elements to them, and going forward I wanna do stuff that's never been done before, different movies, and movies that I can learn from and other people can learn from too.”
Chris also got into some of his famous memories with another famous MJ — Michael Jackson, shared which places out of all his travels impacted him the most, and even briefly addressed his dating life.
Ready to get back to work, Chris promises “a lot of good stuff coming,” that’ll be “on a whole other level.” While he didn’t divulge the entire list, Chris did offer up that a Rush Hour 4 is a big possibility “because I love working with Jackie, but I got some new stuff I think y’all really gonna like.”
As for a him taking another stab at Friday, Chris is unsure even though he loves that the film took on a “life of its own,” spawning two additional films after the first one. So “if it's possible and it comes together right I would try to do it, but… I’m a perfectionist, so if it ain’t gonna be great…”
As always, Tigger closed out the conversation with a game of “One’s Gotta Go,” listen to it all in the clip above.
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