Chris Tucker Interview, Rush Hour 3

MoviesOnline sat down recently with Chris Tucker at the Los Angeles press day to talk about his new film, "Rush Hour 3.” Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker reunite with director Brett Ratner for an all new adventure that takes them to Paris where they confront deadly Triads, beautiful women, an angry cabbie, and an invasive French inspector to uncover the secret at the heart of the Triad syndicate.

Joining the duo is an ensemble of world-class talent, including Hiroyuki Sanada, Youki Kudoh, and Oscar nominee Max von Sydow. Also co-starring are French actor and filmmaker Yvan Attal, legendary director/actor Roman Polanski, rising French actress Noemie Lenoir, Zhang Jingchu, Tzi Ma, Dana Ivey and Henry O.

Since making their debut as partners in 1998’s "Rush Hour,” Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker have become the world’s most entertaining, if unlikely, cinematic duo. "Chris is truly a comedic genius,” says director Brett Ratner, who in addition to helming the first two Rush Hour films also recently directed "X-Men: The Last Stand” and "Red Dragon.” "He’s an incredibly gifted comedian, a guy who can say anything and make it funny. And it’s not even in the words – his face is better than a thousand words.”

The dynamic, as explored in the first two films and continued in "Rush Hour 3,” stems from not only a clash of cultures, languages and personal styles, but also the affection and camaraderie between the two consummate performers. "Chris and Jackie don’t understand each other, and they’re from two completely different cultures,” director Brett Ratner explains. "The chemistry of the two performers is magic. You can’t take your eyes off of them, you really care about them. This is not something I created; it’s something that just exists.”

Much like the actors, their characters have grown closer throughout the progression of the three films. "In the first movie, they became partners,” says Ratner. "In the second film, they became friends. In this film, they really do become brothers.”

Hailed as one of the funniest comics around, Chris Tucker has come a long way since his stand-up comedy days on Def Comedy Jam. Starring in box office smashes that include the #1 grossing comedy "Rush Hour 2,” as well as "Friday,” "Dead Presidents,” "Money Talks” and the original "Rush Hour” (which grossed $250 million worldwide), Tucker has clearly proven himself to be one of Hollywood’s hottest talents. With his unique voice, fast-paced humor, and animated facial expressions, Tucker entertains all audiences and has left a lasting impression on the American psyche. Chris Tucker is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about "Rush Hour 3”:

MoviesOnline: Mr. Hughes, what does it feel like to come back?

CHRIS TUCKER: You know it feels good.

MoviesOnline: Why were you so picky and why did it take you so long?

CHRIS TUCKER: You know, a lot of things just came my way that really didn’t spark my interest, so I decided to step back and travel the world. And during my travels a lot of things I got involved in like in Africa, you know, going on a lot of great trips because people knew who I was, because of my celebrity and fame. I was going on great trips with Bono, Clinton, Colin Powell and went to Oprah Winfrey’s thing of course and it just made me realize that it’s a big world out there. Going to places in Uganda that don’t have clean water because an animal died in the water supply and they need $50, $100 to build a pump to get fresh water and little girls walking all day to get a bucket of water for their families, those things made me appreciate what we have here in America. You know, I used to brush my teeth with Evian water and Fiji water because I don’t want to use the sink water and I don’t do that anymore, because I have seen these things and going to Ethiopia, seeing a room full of infants, babies and some of them blind and most of them was crying and I said, ‘What can I do? This problem is just too big.’

I remember what one of the nuns said – it was two nuns that took care of all these young babies -- and she used to work under Mother Theresa and she said, that Mother Theresa said, ‘Every raindrop creates an ocean.’ And I interpret what she meant by that, she meant that if everybody just did their part, then this problem wouldn’t be so big. We could solve a lot of these issues in the world. So, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been doing that long before it was popular in Hollywood. Now everybody is going. George Clooney and Don Cheadle is doing stuff in Darfur which is great because I feel like I get what Mother Theresa was saying. If you do your part, other people will see what you are doing and say, ‘What is he doing?’ And they will use their fame and their celebrity in a much more powerful way than just being famous and making a whole bunch of money for yourself.

MoviesOnline: So, your priorities have changed?

CHRIS TUCKER: Yeah, I didn’t know. I just decided to step back and I think when you step back you open yourself up to a whole other world. And now I have friends like Clinton and the King of Jordan and all these great people who I would have never encountered if I would have just been for myself. If I wanted to make as much movies as I can and all the money in the world, I wouldn’t have this great life, because I found out that I get more out of people in Africa then I can give them. They give me more than I give them. All I do is show up and they say, ‘Chris Tucker! Thank you for coming. It’s so good of you. What are you doing all the way over here?’ And they show me that life is special, because they don’t have much, they don’t have a lot, but they have a lot of love and they appreciate life because they don’t have a lot. It’s hard to get a glass of water or to get food, so it makes me appreciate. When I give, I always receive and even in my movies if I can make somebody laugh because of what I do, that’s giving, and maybe they’ll forget about their problems. And the same thing with me, when I watch a movie, someone makes me forget about my problems.

MoviesOnline: Do you need humor to deal with some of those tragic situations?

CHRIS TUCKER: Definitely, definitely. Humor and love, because every time I see a kid smile because he’s seen my movie, because these movies travel all over the world, that makes me feel good inside. And I just think that’s natural healing and it makes them feel good because it’s like, ‘Look at this guy, I’ve only seen him on film and now he’s all the way over here.’ It’s like a real spiritual moment and comedy is the same way, because that’s a natural healing, if medicine can heal you then surely music when you hear something good, it makes you feel good, changes your mood, then truly laughter and all that stuff does even a greater healing.

MoviesOnline: So what convinced you that this was the right time for you to come back and do this Rush Hour movie?

CHRIS TUCKER: I didn’t know. I think the timing is great, because this summer all these part three’s are doing great and I guess the timing is just great. It wasn’t planned. But what convinced me was the script. It took awhile to get it together because we never planned on doing a part two or three. I said something in part two which was a blooper outtake that the studio heard and they said, ‘Well, let’s do another one’ because it made a lot of money. And they figured it would make some more money. I said something in an outtake, like a guy fell out of a hotel building in Vegas, and I said, ‘That guy isn’t going to be in ‘Rush Hour 3’,’ and the studio heard it and then the fans heard it. ‘Maybe another Rush Hour is coming?’ So everybody thought we were doing another ‘Rush Hour,’ but it was never planned. So the studio came and said, ‘Let’s do another ‘Rush Hour’!’ And I said, ‘O.K., what are we going to do? Where are we going to go? How are these characters going to get together?’

I was involved with this process because I said, ‘They gotta be believable how we get back together,’ because in the last movie we both went off to New York, but it’s been too long a period of time since New York, so we said that won’t be realistic because we both got older. I got older and Jackie got older, so let’s have Jackie come back to the States, to America, and they bump into each other in the alley. That was our idea and that’s what happened. And also, where are we going to go? And I said, ‘Let’s go to Paris!’ Because we will both be fish out of waters. That was good. They wanted to go to Hawaii and this, that and the other and I said, ‘What about Paris?’ So we all agreed on Paris, we all thought that would be the best place. So, it was a process of making that script work and also our schedules. Brett was doing ‘X-Men,’ Jackie was doing 200 other movies, and I was off in Africa with no phone service, so it was all, you know, you have to get us all back together.

This movie takes you around the world and shows you how these two guys from two different worlds, from two different cultures, get to know one another and laugh at each other and all these stereotypes of different cultures like the French and the Americans and the French don’t like Americans and the Americans don’t like the French, I think it’s funny because it’s so silly that people talk about other people’s cultures and this and that and there is nothing wrong with being different, because of language barriers or something. That’s what makes it special.

MoviesOnline: Do you think humor and poking fun at it is a great way to get people to say, ‘Yeah, it is kind of stupid’?

CHRIS TUCKER: Yes. Exactly, because the French to me are not arrogant. Americans think everyone should speak English and the French say that if you’re in France, you better speak French – I’m not speaking English! And who wouldn’t blame them? So, every culture, we all spar in our own different ways. So, I think it’s funny to see our faults -- the American faults, the French faults. It’s funny to laugh at those different things.

MoviesOnline: One of the running gags has been how Carter constantly gets on Lee’s nerves. If you had to hanG around someone like Carter, how long would it be before you just went crazy?

CHRIS TUCKER: Carter is sort of a person who is kind of out there. He likes to have fun. He was used to working by himself, but now he’s okay working with Jackie because they became brothers and friends in this movie and that gave us room to be even funnier and more action, because Carter in this movie has more action scenes, he has a love interest with Noemie Lenoir, a French actress, and he speaks Chinese. My character, he’s trying to speak Chinese. I wanted all those things to try to make him evolve a little bit instead of being the same character in ‘Rush Hour 2.’ It just makes him a bit more exciting, but I would be able to get along with Carter. Carter’s cool, because I always put a lot of me in these characters, a little extra, but I always put a little bit of me.

MoviesOnline: Well, he also speaks Jewish now because in the outtakes of ‘Rush Hour 2’ you couldn’t get gefilte fish. Have you been practicing?

CHRIS TUCKER: That’s right. Shalom. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Brett helps me out because he’s Jewish, so I practiced a little bit. I tell him sometimes I’m half Jewish too. My name is Chris Tuckenberg. [Laughs]

MoviesOnline: How has the relationship between you and Jackie evolved since the first movie?

CHRIS TUCKER: It’s great, it’s great. Because the first movie we really didn’t understand each other. Just like Jackie might have told you, we met in a meeting, because we had to meet with him so he could meet me and agree to do ‘Rush Hour,’ because he didn’t know who I was, because I was an up and coming comedian. He knew who Eddie Murphy was, people like that, but we was talking the whole – well, I was talking to him the whole meeting, but he didn’t say anything. And I didn’t know if he spoke English or not, so I asked Brett, ‘Does he speak English? Because he’s not talking.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll learn English by the time we start filming.’ I said, ‘I can’t be funny if he don’t speak English.’ He said, ‘I’m just joking. He speaks English. That’s his culture. He’s just feeling you out.’ I said, ‘Alright, I’m in. Whatever.’ So, I took that to the movie, because I didn’t see him until we started filming after that, because he agreed and we went to the set and that’s how I came up with ‘Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?’

And I just played the whole movie like real life and that’s how our friendship is. Just like the first movie, he was a fish out of water in America, second movie I’m fish out of water in Hong Kong and we actually went to Hong Kong for the first movie premiere and we did the karaoke in real life at night. I was doing Michael Jackson all night and Brett said, ‘Let’s put that in the movie if we do a part two.’ We put it in the movie and in this movie we’re both fish out of water in Europe and Paris and we were brothers in this movie. And of course we get in a little argument, but then we make up. It’s like real life. I went and surprised him right before I signed on to do ‘Rush Hour 3.’ I just went to Hong Kong. Flew out there on my own, and I called him from the airport and said, ‘Jackie, I’m in Hong Kong.’ And he said, ‘You in Hong Kong! We hang out tonight! I come get you!’ [Laughs] You know, it’s like we hung out and did all that. It was just like the movie.

MoviesOnline: Are you going to be taking another long break from filming movies or is there another project out there you might do relatively soon?

CHRIS TUCKER: No, I wanna work. I wanna work. And I don’t plan on taking a long break because there are a lot of things I wanna do. One of the things I wanna do is I wanna do a stand up comedy movie, because a lot of my fans haven’t seen my stand up and don’t know that I came from a stand up background. I wanna do like Eddie Murphy did with ‘Raw’ and ‘Richard Prior Live In Long Beach’ and ‘Live on the Sunset Strip’ and I just want to get that done, because every comedian wants to do that and get that out there. And also, I’ve got another project that I’ve been working on, that I’ve been working on for a couple of years now called ‘Mr. President.’ I’ll be playing the first black president in a comedy and since the election is coming up I thought it would be fun and I could poke a lot of humor at a lot of things in that movie.

MoviesOnline: What about ‘Rush Hour 4’?

CHRIS TUCKER: ‘Rush Hour 4’? If the fans want to see another one, we always have to think about it, then we gotta go work on a script and make it even better than this one if we can do it.

MoviesOnline: Not for five years though?

Not for five years. No, because Jackie told me, ‘I chased you for five, six years! This time you call me!’ So, if this one does good, what I’ll do, I’ll just go write a script with a writer, I’ll come up with it real fast. I’ll just do it real fast, have it there, a matter of fact, I’m just gonna get a script done…

MoviesOnline: You’re going to write it yourself?

CHRIS TUCKER: Just in case. I’m gonna write it just in case and I’ll have a script all ready and get it to the studio. As soon as they start talking about ‘Do you want to do ‘Rush Hour 4’?’ I’m going to go like, ‘What about that one?’ [Laughs]

MoviesOnline: With the project ‘Mr. President’ and this stand up, do you have any sort of director attached or timeframe for these projects?

CHRIS TUCKER: Uh, with the stand up? Yeah, well we’re talking to Brett about directing the stand up movie and I am gonna go on tour late September, all of October. Right after the movie comes out, I want to jump on the road and tour a little bit.

MoviesOnline: So, the stand up movie would follow you everywhere?

CHRIS TUCKER: Yeah, it will be behind-the-scenes, but it’ll mainly be my live stand up on stage and I have a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff too, and I wanted to do a little something different, maybe film some scenes for the movie, but a couple surprise stuff.

MoviesOnline: Are there any superhero roles you’d like to take a crack at?

CHRIS TUCKER: Yeah, I’ve looked at a couple. I’ve been thinking about Flash maybe or Green Lantern, I heard he was black, so maybe Green Lantern or something, I don’t know. Something fun.

MoviesOnline: Do you mind if I ask where the bracelet is from?

CHRIS TUCKER: Well the bracelet is from a really good friend of mine who died of leukemia. She was like a sister and I met her through her family, through her father and her brother and we’re actually dedicating the movie to her. It’s Britianna Henderson. She came to the set a few times, right before she passed this year. And so, I just keep it on in remembrance, but this movie is definitely dedicated to her because she always loved the ‘Rush Hours and stuff.’

MoviesOnline: What’s with your two watches?

CHRIS TUCKER: I just forgot to take one of them off and I put both of them on because the premiere is tonight and I didn’t know which color I was going to wear.

MoviesOnline: How was the language barrier? Did you learn any French?

CHRIS TUCKER: Oui, parlez-vous, oui, oui…[Laughs] I tried. I tried. It’s hard. I’m still learning English, so I’m trying to get that down first, but the culture was great, especially when you stay at the Saint George Hotel. They treat you like heaven there. It was great. I had no problem, but the French love to say no. I was late to get on my plane at the airport and they love to say no. ‘Non, non. It’s not possible. Non. I cannot do it, it is impossible! Non, non!’ [Laughs]

MoviesOnline: What will your stand up routine be about?

CHRIS TUCKER: I would love to talk about working with Jackie, people love to hear about that. People love to hear about making movies – my early movie ‘Friday,’ they love that when I talk about that, and also being a father now. I have an 8-year-old son so I like talking about that and how that changed me and how that is and then growing up and different things. I talk about a lot of stuff. And how it is being famous now. How different it is.

MoviesOnline: How did fatherhood change you?

CHRIS TUCKER: Fatherhood? Fatherhood changed me in a way like, you know, it takes awhile to realize that you’re a father. It’s like, ‘I’m a father. Somebody’s depending on me.’ So, it’s like, it’s different, but it changed me in a good way because it opens you up and it really opens up another side of you and you have to, you really have somebody depending on you so you have to be more cautious. And also, you know, becoming famous, I took it as a responsibility, because I didn’t want to lead kids down the wrong way and give out the wrong advice, because people really do look up to you and say, ‘Well, if he does it, it’s OK.’ And you gotta take that into consideration. Kids are watching and even adults. They like you enough they say, "Well, he’s an alcoholic, I can drink too. That’s cool.’ You don’t want to put out bad things.

MoviesOnline: Does your son want to be a comedian like you?

CHRIS TUCKER: Um, I don’t know. I think he might want to do it. He’s in this movie. He’s one of the kids in the Karate scene. You might have seen him. He’s the only black kid in it [laughs] with the pretty smile, so he might want to do it now that he’s got the bug. We’ll see after tonight, I think he’s gonna get the bug.

MoviesOnline: Where do you see your career going?

CHRIS TUCKER: I think more developing and producing and directing, because like I said, I’m involved with the script and a lot of people don’t know how I look at it and I say, ‘Let’s make this work like this. Let’s go to Paris.’ You know, I don’t have a producer credit on this movie, because I don’t need it, but I’m involved with making it make sense. A lot of my projects, because I like to participate, even if I’m wrong, I just want to just keep throwing ideas and then eventually we’ll get it.

MoviesOnline: What do you think would be the weirdest country for Carter and Lee to end up in if there was another ‘Rush Hour’ movie?

CHRIS TUCKER: Russia. Dubai. I like Dubai, because it’s a new city, you’ve never really seen people film over there yet. Somewhere fresh.

MoviesOnline: What’s the most amazing thing that you’ve seen Jackie do stunt-wise?

CHRIS TUCKER: Oh, man, I have seen him do crazy, crazy stuff. Jumping and swinging and…you know, I like the way he has a vision about something. He’ll do a shot, cut, cut, cut, cut – he knows all the shots and he’ll do them all and you’ll see them cut together and you’ll go, ‘Whoa. That’s sweet.’ Because you didn’t expect it, you didn’t know where it was going, so I like his vision.

MoviesOnline: Would you ever do another ‘Friday’? Ice Cube always says he wants you.

CHRIS TUCKER: I know, you know what, everybody wants me to do another one, but I always like to leave movies. You know, do a good job and you know people really like it and I think that movie is like a cult classic and I don’t ever want to mess it up, so I’m gonna leave it alone because, especially now, I want to keep moving on and doing something different. ‘Rush Hour’ is different because it’s action/comedy and those type of movies you can keep doing them in different locations, but ‘Friday’ is sort of a special movie because we filmed in 20 days. It took us 20 days to film, that’s no time and a million, $2 million. Low budget, considered a low budget movie and it was independent and New Line picked it up. So all we had is we filmed this one street. All we had was to try and make up something and be funny on this one street and all this stuff, so I think for me, I probably won’t do another one, but they have done two or three more, but I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll do another one, no.

MoviesOnline: Do you have any interest in playing a romantic lead or in a drama?

CHRIS TUCKER: Yeah, I want to do it all, because I think my fans haven’t seen a lot of the other sides of me. They’ve seen me do ‘Dead Presidents,’ which [was] a smaller part with the Hughes Bros., ‘Fifth Element’ – spaced out character, so I’ve got a lot of range. And action, drama, action/comedy, a lot of comedians can’t do all that, they don’t have that much range, so I can pretty much do it all, so I’m ready to do it.

MoviesOnline: What about writing and directing?

CHRIS TUCKER: Yeah, writing and directing. I want to do that because I feel like I’m already sort of doing the writing and sort of pitching in ideas. Directing would be something I think I could do too, but with the right people around me, because it’s a lot of responsibility.

MoviesOnline: Luc Besson said he’s working on a new Sci-Fi trilogy. Would you consider working with him again?

CHRIS TUCKER: Oh yeah, I’ve been trying to work with him.

MoviesOnline: You’ve worked with Luc and Brett and it’s been just them for a while. I figure if it’s not going to be Brett, than maybe Luc.

CHRIS TUCKER: Oh yeah, Luc was somebody who I felt was a great director, because he created that character and knew what he wanted and he directed me and got the best out of me and what he wanted. I really enjoy working with him and I like creating a relationship with a director, but there are a lot of great directors out there who I would love to work with. New, up and coming directors, established directors like Steven Spielberg, I’m always bugging him like ‘What you got coming out?’ [Laughs.]

MoviesOnline: What did you think the whole brotherhood theme added to the movie?

CHRIS TUCKER: I think it added that we definitely – we really cared about each other, because we really grew on each other. So, I think that made people say, ‘Oooh, they really like each other.’ It was a bond that we had that sort of just happened and we realized it when we were separated. And I think the audience, they felt that.

MoviesOnline: Are you going to do some more traveling?

CHRIS TUCKER: Yeah, I definitely want to keep traveling and hopefully making movies and traveling at the same time. Making movies and being somewhere on the other side of the world. I think that would be fun.

"Rush Hour 3” opens in theaters on August 10^th.