Every now and then the rumor comes out again that a quarter of ‘Rush Hour’ is on the way, but Beyond the announcement the thing remains there, in that haze between Hollywood projects. And it makes sense: Jackie Chan is not around for so much trouble, already over 70 years old, and Chris Tucker has only made two films in the last decade. But while we have seen the protagonist of ‘Police Story’ here and there, the stand-up comedian has remained in the shadows. And… Can we find out what happened to Chris Tucker?
Comedy and Christianity
Christopher Tucker was born on August 31, 1971 in Atlanta, United States, and was the sixth child of the marriage between Mary Louise Tucker, a housewife, and Norris Tucker, owner of different businesses (the main one, a janitorial business). In fact, his first job was as a teenager at a Burger King owned by his father, But he wasn’t willing to stay there.
In fact, already at school he was known for doing imitations of Eddie Murphy or Michael Jackson (with whom he would later be a very good friend), and He was very clear that he wanted to escape as if he were leaving his hometown., Decatur, in Georgia, which had just under 20,000 people at that time. As soon as he graduated, he went to Los Angeles to try to enter the complex world of comedy and stand-up. He wasn’t crazy, of course: he had already proven himself in Atlanta and made enough contacts to ensure he could survive there.
It was a meteoric career: In 1990 he moved and only two years later he was already a regular on shows such as ‘Def Comedy Jam’, on HBO, ‘Showtime at the Apollo’ or as an award show presenter. He even appeared in an episode of ‘Roseanne’ (if you’re curious, the fifth of the first season). After a supporting role in the series ‘Living with Mr. Cooper’ The time came for the leap to the seventh art in 1993, with a cameo in ‘Meteor Man’. Nobody imagined that in just four years I would be stepping on the Cannes festival.
You, cker happens to you
Nobody seemed to pay attention to him after his first credited film roles in ‘House Party 3’ or ‘The Panthers’, but everything changed in 1995, when He earned only $15,000 for his scene-stealing role in ‘Friday All’, hand in hand with Ice Cube. It was a resounding stoner success that raised 27 million dollars and ended up becoming a franchise five years later. But in 2000 Tucker was on to something else.
After an appearance in ‘Money to Burn’ came his big leap into quality cinema with ‘The Fifth Element’, alongside Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman. He wasn’t the star of the show, but All eyes were on him immediately… despite his Razzie nomination. for worst new star (which Dennis Rodman won for ‘Double Team’). The next? Working with Quentin Tarantino and achieve the best weekend at the box office in the history of the month of September. At least, of course, at that time. Not too bad for a little comedian from Georgia.
It is true that he was not the most famous face of ‘Jackie Brown’ compared to Samuel L. Jackson or Pam Grier, but He had completely put his foot in mainstream cinema. That doesn’t mean that when thinking about a partner for Jackie Chan in ‘Rush Hour’ the producers thought, in this order, of Martin Lawrence, Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy and Dave Chappelle before him. However, Brett Ratner, the director, had worked with Tucker on his first film, ‘Money First,’ and insisted that it be him. And of course: success happened magically.
You are the king of pop culture
‘Rush Hour’ became a bomb that cost 35 million dollars and grossed almost 250 million worldwide. Tucker began to win awards from MTV or Blockbuster and his face became known throughout the world. Three years later he earned 20 million for ‘Rush Hour 2’, which exceeded the collection of the first by 100 million, and culminated in 2007 with ‘Rush Hour 3’, which was less profitable but despite everything remained at a quarter of a million. And although the star who hit like pianos was Jackie Chan, he earned 10 million dollars more, becoming the highest paid actor in the world. That was the level.
Since then, audiovisual silence. In this hiatus, religion began to be a differential factor in his life and he tried to ensure that both his monologues and his roles did not lead to bad behavior. In fact, his only three films since then have been supporting roles in ‘The Bright Side’, ‘Billy Lynn’ and, eleven years later, ‘Air’, where he played a Nike executive and in which, supposedly, he wrote the lines of dialogue himself. Ah! She also followed her career in stand-up, as you can see in the ‘Live’ she uploaded to Netflix in 2015.
And in the meantime, what has become of him? Why didn’t he continue a career full of success? Well, as he himself stated in Classix ATL, “It was the ceiling and I wanted more. It wasn’t enough. So I stepped back and I lived a little, I traveled the world“I did a lot of humanitarian work that really broadened my global perspective.”. Basically, give something to the world and inspire it instead of being a blockbuster actor.
This is all very well, but it has also had its problems, so to speak. Apart, of course, from the conspiracy theories about his presence on Jeffrey Epstein’s island, where he went to talk about how to combat the AIDS pandemic in Africa. In 2014, The actor reached an agreement to pay two and a half million dollars in taxes caused, he said, by poor accounting and business management. Good and In 2021 he ended up paying $9.6 million more in back taxes. Maybe ‘Rush Hour 4’ urges you more than we think, after all.
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