Chris Tucker Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

Korben Dallas.

Here he is.

The one and only winner of the Gemini Croquette Contest.

This boy is fueled like fire.

So start melting, ladies.

I thought of Prince.

I thought of...

'Cause Prince was supposed to play the part.

Declined for some re-.

I think because of the wardrobe,

because Prince had his own style.

[upbeat music]

Rush Hour.

It was so much fun, man, working with Jackie Chan.

This guy, he's amazing, man.

I definitely prepared myself,

'cause I knew it was Jackie Chan.

I didn't want to, you know, let him down.

I worked out, lift weights, ran.

You know, on the first one,

made sure I was in tip-top shape

so whenever he was like, come on, you know?

I was ready.

[men grunting]

Watch out!

Behind you.

But he made it so easy, man, with the martial arts

and all that, you know, stuff.

He was just swinging me around,

basically was just following him, man.

Go this way, kick this way, look this way.

Made it look like I knew what I was doing.

So it was good.

I mean, one day I think I just walked

into a real police station, like through the back door

acting like I belonged there.

I don't know what I said, I don't remember

but I was like, this is Carter, you know?

I gotta go find him.

You know, I wanted him to be smart.

He was doing things his way, differently.

You know, and breaking the rules.

What's happening, Carter?

Put the guns down.

Put the guns down.

A lot of the scenes was just off the script.

I mean, at the improv, Jackie followed me a lot

but he was so good.

The chemistry was so great, man.

He knew when I went off on something,

he was right there with reaction and all that stuff.

And with the action, you know, he's the man with that.

So I just like, What we gonna do?

What you want me to do?

He's like, Just follow me.

With the clothes, I think back then, that was Versace.

And the stylist had me like, some regular stuff

that everybody wear, I was like, No, no.

Carter gotta a little more edge than this.

Then I got this other stylist who went

and got me some like, Versace belt

and a couple of Versace things

and a suit was tailored and man,

I said, This is Carter.

Let's go in.

I wanna- Hey, watch it sweetness.

He's got some fire to him. Honey cups.

I like that.

Go get the clothes. Okay, I'm gonna-

Hurry up! I'll pull some items.

Ooh, Jesus.

Lil' Kim, I'll be back.

You see that?

He likes you.

Yeah, that was fun, man.

That was so much fun.

Every time I go to Vegas and go into the Colosseum Mall,

I'll be like, Oh, that's what a shop was.

We went in and Jeremy was-

We had a lot of fun during that.

[upbeat music]

Friday.

Break yourself, fool.

Look what you did to my curtain.

You better watch who window you climbing in fool

before you get blasted on.

With what?

That was my first like, starring roll, co-starring roll.

And that was like, my shot to let people know

I can carry a movie alongside Ice Cube.

So I remember just the preparation, focus.

And we only, we like to say that we only had two takes.

Small budget and 20 days.

Working with Gary Gray was great, you know, smart.

You know, he really found the great music for the movie,

the great tone.

Oh man, he was just genius with that

and putting it together.

It was really just me being, you know, young Chris Tucker.

Just knew I would bring that energy

and then take it up a notch

and animated it a lot and make it fun and funny.

Craig!

Craig.

Hold up.

I gave him a heartbeat.

Man, that's what it's supposed to do.

And the casting with everybody,

with Tiny Zeus Lister.

I don't know if I mentioned him when he passed away.

One of my good friends,

legendary Tiny Zeus Lister who played Deebo.

Casting him in as like, the big villain coming through,

like the shark, you know, from Jaws.

And working next to Ice Cube was a pleasure, man.

'Cause Cube, you know, I was a fan of his being a rapper.

The legendary icon called John Witherspoon and Bernie Mac.

Those guys, comedy legends and gods, man.

You had Reynaldo Rey and Yvette Wilson.

So many legends that was in this movie that passed away.

I'm so, so honored to have worked with them.

[upbeat music]

The Fifth Element.

Luc Besson said he wanted a flamboyant character

and he wanted like sexuality and all this stuff.

I thought of Prince.

I thought of-

'Cause Prince was supposed to play the part.

Declined for some re-.

I think because of the wardrobe.

Because Prince had his own style.

And matter of fact, he told me one time in person.

He heard I was doing the movie

and he's like, I didn't wanna do it.

I was like, oh, and all that.

I said, Okay, all right.

So then I was second choice.

Was definitely different for me

but I'm so glad I tackled it and did it.

Because man, it brought out, you know,

range in me I only used probably on stage.

So working with Luc Besson, man, was unbelievable.

We'd filmed in London.

He had all these stages, you know, at Pine Woods

and it was like he really was in another world.

And man, putting on the outfits and the costumes

and all the stuff, man.

It just really turned me into the Ruby Rhod character.

And I really was able to just really let loose.

Korben, my man, I have no fire, I have no matches.

Do you have any matches?

I have no matches.

I stopped smoking.

If I knew...

I mean Father, you smoke?

If I would've found out what I was wearing,

I probably would've said, Nah, nah, nah.

But I'm so glad I didn't

because it's one of my favorite roles.

I definitely did some different type of all, you know-

Tell 'em to try to make this that way.

But they were speaking French

and they kind of gave me the 52 fakes.

They did what they wanted to do.

But I'm glad they did because that's what Luc Besson wanted

and that was what the character was.

And it made me go into the character more

if I would've did it my way.

So I'm glad they didn't listen to me.

I love working with directors who write their own scripts

and they know it from back, forth.

They can really tell you what they want.

And I like when sometimes they dictate it to me

'cause I can just give it right to 'em.

[upbeat music]

Money Talks.

Hold up, man.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You that silly ass reporter

from the Channel Five News, ain't you?

Channel 12, actually.

What's up? I knew it.

What's up, man? James Russell.

How you doing?

All right, what's up?

Well first of all it was great working with Charlie Sheen.

He was, man, the best.

Charlie actually fought for me to have first billing.

New Line wanted Charlie Sheen to be first billing.

But I kinda brought the project-

My team brought the project to New Line.

We found it some kind of way.

And then they got Charlie for us.

And Charlie said, No, no, no.

He should have first billing.

And I'll never forget that, you know,

that he did that for me early in my career.

I would slap you, man.

I would slap the hell outta you.

You don't play with me, you don't know who you messing with.

I don't even know when I'm gonna slap somebody.

My reflexes just slap people.

I be like, damn.

Why did I- why did I do that?

I don't even know when I'll be slapping people.

I don't know when I'm gonna slap somebody.

You keep messin' with me.

I'm dangerous, I'm scared of myself.

I was just going all out trying to get the laughs,

trying to make it fun.

I just wanted to bring my energy to the screen, man.

I was young.

I just wanted every scene to be, you know, energy.

The character was on the run

and I just wanted to just be fun

and I was all out wherever I could, you know?

It didn't matter.

I was holding nothing back, man.

When he came up to the car, right?

He said, Get outta the car, I got outta the car.

I said, What you calling back up for, man?

Everybody around here for, this between me and you.

I ain't even do nothing.

They got my license, my registration and everything.

What's up now? What's up now?

The prison scene was something we came up with on the spot

on that day of, 'cause we were so young.

We didn't even think about it till that day.

Like man, we gotta do something right?

We're close friends and we were really close back then

and we just wanted to do something that's iconic, memorable.

'Cause we was like, hey man, we gotta do something

that's crazy because we can't let this scene get by us.

[upbeat music]

Dead President.

All I know is my blood cells all fucked up.

Some nights I wake up in cold sweats and shit.

You don't look at me like that, man.

It ain't the heroin.

The heroin ain't never did nothin' to me.

I was happy that I got Dead Presidents

because I wanted to show a different range,

that I could play dramatic roles early in my career.

So that was a lot of fun.

I was looking forward to doing that

'cause I did that right after Fridays, I think.

So working with the Hughes brothers were great

'cause they had the 60s, 70s music

all around the set the whole time, man.

And they really put us back into that period, man.

The wardrobe, it was just all the stuff

they put around us, man, that really made it work.

Don't move, mister.

♪ I've been ♪

♪ I've been wanting to get next to you, baby ♪

♪ You see, sometime I fool myself ♪

And they had to put these contacts in my eyes to,

you know, make it seem like I was passed away for a while

and then I had to walk-

I remember in real life I had to walk across

this cold street in New York.

I was freezing that day and I couldn't see anything.

I think they had me on with the robe already on

and I walk through traffic to get to the building

where I'm supposed to be.

I remember that and I was like,

Oh my god, what is this all about?

[upbeat music]

Air.

The key to Phil is make him afraid.

You gonna get us both damn fired.

Phil got a hundred million dollars

and a life supply them pink nut-hugging jogging shorts.

The hell is he afraid of?

Let's say you get Phil, how the hell you gonna get Michael?

My part was-

The Howard White part wasn't in the script.

So my dialogue and my scenes had to make sense

with the script.

He had to make the movie move.

And the information that I gave in the scene

had to work for the story and also for my part.

I said yes because Ben was like, you know,

We'll fix it. Whatever you wanna do, we'll make it work.

I've called Ben the player coach

'cause he's an actor and a director

and he knows what it takes for actors to feel comfortable,

to get the best out of 'em,

and give 'em that room to do their thing.

And great team.

I really had a great time working with 'em.

You got 'em all there.

The greatest high school players in the country.

You might have forgot about this, but I was invited.

Best day of my life.

Then I blew out my damn knee.

Yeah.

They don't matter about what Phil's thinking

or anybody's thinking.

All that matters is how much do you believe.

I believe in you.

And Michael said he had to have Howard in the movie

'cause Howard's a big part of Nike.

Howard was pretty much the bridge from Nike to Michael.

I wouldn't have did it without talking to Howard.

It was just amazing how it came about.

Just a blessing because you know, Howard's still here.

Howard had a heart transplant

so he might have not even been here.

I spent hours on the phone

with Howard White, my friend Howard, talking about him

and then he put me on the phone with his childhood friends

when he was five-years-old and doing hop scotch

in the neighborhood, riding bikes,

to his high school teachers and coaches,

high school coaches and friends,

all the way up to when he mentored Charles Barkley.

So he gave me all this information

and I had to put it all together

and I pretty much wrote all my scenes.

I put all that stuff together.

And Ben gave me the room to to do whatever I wanted to do.

So I got all the information

and embodied his spirit and dialect.

It was one of the hardest parts I ever did.

[upbeat music]

Jackie Brown.

Man, you must be outta your fuckin' mind

if you think I'm gonna get in this dirty ass trunk.

We ain't going nowhere but to Koreatown man.

You ain't gonna be in here no more than 10 minutes

Man, I ain't riding in no goddamn trunk

for no minute, man.

Why I can't ride up front with you?

You can't ride up front with me.

The surprise element is 90% of it.

I'm sorry, man, but I ain't getting no goddamn trunk.

They put me in that trunk though.

I didn't know they was gonna do me like that in that trunk.

My fans got mad cause they was like,

hey, we come to see you in the movie

and you get, you know, knocked off

in the first scene they got.

They got mad at me at that time

'cause I was like starring in movies

and they wanted to really see me.

Then they did it with the Strawberry Letters, you know?

That was just-

Every time I hear that song, I think about that scene.

You know, I wanted to do it because Quentin Tarantino,

one of the hottest directors

and you just wanted to work with him,

to say you worked with him.

So it was fun.

I knew it was just gonna be a quick scene.

I remember Samuel Jackson, working with him.

And it was worth it.

It was a lot of fun and Quentin, you know,

he was basically like, telling me what he wanted.

'Cause he talked the way he writes so it's so natural.

That's one of the few directors

I kind of said his words kind of word-for-word

'cause it was kind of like the way I talk a little bit.

[upbeat music]

Silver Linings Playbook.

He wrote about you, all right.

What'd he say?

He said you guys was helping each other out.

And you were nice.

And you had a mouth on you but-

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa.

Okay, okay. You're a little mouthy but-

No, please tell me more about what he said in the letter.

Anything you wanna know

I'll just tell you.

The letter, there's nothing-

I love movies that I can learn something from.

You know, mental health is a big, big thing.

And I learned a lot from doing this movie.

I love working with directors like David O. Russell

'cause like I said, he know the script so well.

He'll tell you to do something,

he's off camera throwing stuff at you.

He would go around with you like a monitor

and like Ah, say this.

He'll throw stuff at you, throw stuff at you, throw stuff.

So I loved that, you know, coming from the comic world.

[upbeat music]

California Love, You Rock My World.

I remember Tupac had just got outta jail.

We were filming in the desert.

He came in, it was like, unbelievable.

He brought all this great energy to the set

and we all was having fun

'cause we was celebrating him getting out, too.

And Michael Clarke Duncan saved my life.

I'll tell everybody that.

Because we were going over this dune in the desert

and I had my hands up.

We hit a bump.

And then Michael Clarke Duncan grabbed my-

back of my shirt or vest, and kind of pulled me back down.

I think I was going over and I was like, Thank you, man.

Thank you, Michael.

Thank you.

So he's always got a special place in my heart.

Ooh.

Look a that.

Mm.

She look good, huh?

She looks homeless.

Rock My World was a mini-movie.

It was a movie like he always did.

It's a lot of fun.

I think the theme was we were in Cuba or something.

Michael Jackson just a part of everybody's life growing up.

A big influence.

I noticed that, you know, back all the way from Fridays,

I would be doing a dance or a acting something out,

sounding like him in a song and in Def Jam-

Even before that in Def Jam I did a Michael Jackson joke.

And then a lot of comedians in Def Jam,

everybody had to have a Michael Jackson joke

'cause he's just so huge in everybody's life.