Thursday, August 16, 2007

Chris Tucker is Ready to Move On



(image via popmatters)

After riding the Rush Hour beast as far as it would take him, Chris Tucker has had enough. Stop the gravy train, he wants to get off. And we can't blame him. The franchise is quite frankly out of steam. Its fertility is spent. He did well with it, to be sure. A friednship with Bill Clinton; in the $20 million-a-picture club; the Hollywood A-list; in the Tom Cruise clique. The only drawback being that he must provide pop-eyed buffonishness on command. From the LATimes:

"You can hear the weariness in his voice, but also sense his resolve, as comedian Chris Tucker tries to separate himself from the character with whom he's most closely identified: James Carter, the wisecracking, helium-voiced LAPD detective who bounces off martial-arts whiz Jackie Chan in the Rush Hour movies.

"'I'm definitely ready to move on,' Tucker said over a lunch at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills, despite Rush Hour 3 topping the box office when it opened last week.

"'When I did the first movie in '98, that was basically where I was as a comedian: the James Carter character. I always wanted to make a movie like that. I knew he was the perfect vehicle for my comedy. But I definitely want to do something different next and show a different side of me that people haven't seen. When I did the first movie, I thought that was it.'"

And the working with Brett Ratner for three pictures probably killed all the joy left in his soul.

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