Chris Tucker Returns To Spotlight With Ben Affleck's Michael Jordan Drama Air: “I Basically Wrote All My Parts In The Movie" - 8days Skip to main content

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Chris Tucker Returns To Spotlight With Ben Affleck's Michael Jordan Drama Air: “I Basically Wrote All My Parts In The Movie"

Air marks the reclusive Rush Hour star's first movie role since 2016's Billy Flynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Chris Tucker Returns To Spotlight With Ben Affleck's Michael Jordan Drama Air: “I Basically Wrote All My Parts In The Movie"

Chris Tucker made so much money from the Rush Hour trilogy that he decided to take a break from Hollywood.

Tucker, 51, recently spoke to US radio station Classix ATL while making the press tour for his role in Ben Affleck’s Air, the story of how a then-rookie Michael Jordan signed a game-changing endorsement deal with the then-fledgling sneakers maker Nike.

“I’ve been missing y'all too!' Tucker said in the interview. “The way I kind of stepped back from Hollywood at one point, you know, being the highest paid actor in Hollywood. But I felt like, you know, it was a ceiling right there and I wanted more. It wasn’t enough. So I stepped back and lived a little bit, travelled the world, and did a lot of humanitarian stuff that really broadened my perspective on the world.

At the height of Tucker’s career, he was making US$48 million (S$63 mil) from playing LAPD detective James Carter opposite Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong cop Lee in Rush Hour trilogy (1998, 2001 and 2007).

During his Hollywood break, Tucker hung out with the likes of Sidney Poitier and Quincy Jones.

“Quincy Jones, I travelled the world with him and now he's just turned the big 90," said Tucker, who has a 24-year-old son with ex-wife Azja Pryor. “You know he ain't travelling like that no more so I didn't miss that opportunity, all that wisdom they gave me."

Tucker also got to spend quality time with his son Destin Christopher Tucker from his six-year marriage to health coach Azja Pryor, which ended in 2003. During his downtime, Tucker also ran into some tax problems. In 2021, he was sued by the Internal Revenue Service for not paying US$9.6 million in taxes for 2002, 2006, 2008, and 2010.

While Tucker dialed down his Hollywood commitments, he didn’t stay out of the limelight. He continued to doing stand-up comedy shows and once in a while, he would turn up in supporting roles, like he did in 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook and 2016’s Billy Flynn's Long Halftime Walk.

Tucker got involved in Air to play Nike exec Howard White because of Michael Jordan — but in a roundabout way.  “Ben went and met with Michael Jordan and Michael Jordan said, ‘You got to have Viola Davis play my mama and you got to have Howard White in this movie,” Tucker told Classix ATL. “And my people told me that you know they want you [Tucker] to play this part.”

He continued, “I said, Cool, that’s my friend! And I called him and he said, ‘Yeah, I heard they had [you] in this movie.’” Tucker and the real White have been friends since they first met “years ago at Michael Jordan’s golf tournaments down in the Bahamas”.

White wasn’t in the original script but Affleck had Tucker work the character into the narrative. “I basically wrote all my parts in the movie and just gave them to Ben,' he shared.  “He loved it because all the research and information I got from Howard about what was going on with Nike. So it was great.”

While promoting Air, Tucker also revealed plans for Rush Hour 4. “You’re going to see a lot of good stuff coming, but it’s going to be on a whole other level,” Tucker told Audacy’s V-103. “That’s what I like… I’m excited about that. It’s not going to be what you’ve normally seen… Rush Hour 4, that’s something I definitely will probably drop in there because I love working with Jackie, but I’ve got some new stuff that I think you’re really gonna like. I’m excited about it.”

Air also stars Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro, the sports marketing exec who helped sign Jordan to Nike; Viola Davis and her husband Julius Tennon as Jordan’s parents; Jason Bateman as Rob Strasser, Nike’s VP of Marketing; Chris Messina as Jordan’s agent David Falk; and Marlon Wayans as one of Jordan’s coaches at the 1984 Olympics. Besides directing, Affleck also stepped in front of the camera to play Nike co-founder Philip Knight.

Air (NC16) is in cinemas now.

 

Photos: TPG News/Click Photos, Disney

Watch exclusive 8 DAYS interviews on meWATCH and Mediacorp Entertainment on YouTube. 

 

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