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“I started my dream at comedy clubs in
Decatur,” he told Hampton Roads. “I’d work late at night and still get to my early-morn- ing shift.” The former Burger King janitor is the son of an entrepreneurial father, who ran a janitorial service, and a churchgo- ing, stay-at-home mother. At 18, after graduation, Tucker ditched the broom and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in stand-up comedy and, eventually, act- ing — all the while planning to hightail it back home if his dreams didn’t work out. But they did. In 2007, Tucker became
the highest paid actor in the world when he negotiated a $25-million paycheck for his role in Rush Hour 3, the last installment in a wildly successful series where he screeched, pop-locked and quipped his way to megastardom opposite actor and martial arts action hero Jackie Chan. Twenty-five million dollars was quite a
jump from the three million he earned for the first Rush Hour nearly a decade before. And it dwarfs the $15,000 he made in his breakout role as Smokey-the-Weedhead opposite rapper-turned-actor Ice Cube in the classic 1995 flick Friday. Tucker, 41, made his fi lm debut alongside
comedian Bernie Mac in House Party 3 (1994) and before that was a regular standout on Russell Simmons’s Def Comedy Jam. His raunchy routines about pimps, his family life and his romantic escapades — along with his dead-ringer impressions of President Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson — left audiences screaming in their seats and catapulted him to a solid movie career. Plus, Tucker had no idea that he would
ever meet the King of Pop or the former president, much less become friends of both iconic fi gures, even traveling with Bill Clinton to Africa on humanitarian missions. After Rush Hour 3, Tucker seemed to have a
come-to-Jesus moment and decided he would try to refrain from his salacious four-letter rants in his professional and personal life. The father of a 14-year-old son told
the Wall Street Journal that when he was
younger he chose not to “just cuss” like other comedians. “I always wanted to be different and separate myself from that,” he said. “So that’s why I don’t cuss anymore. I want the stuff I talk about to be funny within itself, and not just add a cuss word at the end to shock people. My thing was perfection — perfecting my stand-up.” His change of course accompanied five
During the re-launch of his stand-up
career, Tucker took a surprising step with his role in the Academy Award-winning film Silver Linings Playbook. His impres- sive performance as a former meth addict opposite Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro and Jennifer Lawrence showcased his dramatic chops. “I’m a perfectionist, and it’s real hard
“I’m a perfectionist, and it’s real hard for me to do something when I don’t feel it’s fresh and new”
years of looking for satisfying roles. Un- interested in those he was being offered — mostly in comedies and buddy movies — Tucker decided he would take matters into his own hands. “It’s been back to my roots in stand-up
comedy for the last two years,” said Tucker to Hampton Roads about the 2011 kickoff of his Back to Where I Came From stand-up comedy tour. “It’s a great place to be because you have to be the sharpest and, when you’re clicking, it’s the greatest reward. You get an instant response from the audience, not like in the movies when you have to wait six months to see if a gag worked.” After playing a few clubs, he graduated
to theaters and recently filmed a stand-up comedy movie in Atlanta that is scheduled to be released in theaters later this year. “It’s going to be like Eddie Murphy’s
Raw or Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip,” he told The Daily Beast. “That’s my dream because those are my idols, who I grew up watching.”
for me to do something when I don’t feel it’s fresh and new,” he told The Guard- ian. Tucker played another addict in a serious turn as a Vietnam veteran in the under-appreciated 1995 film Dead Presidents with Larenz Tate. “I did this one [Silver Linings Playbook] because I thought it was a great movie dealing with mental illness. It intrigued me because I was learning at the same time, you know, playing this character.” Tucker has several projects on tap
for the future, including Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra, where he will star as Sinatra’s valet, George Jacobs, who wrote an acclaimed autobiography of the same name. And there are also some preliminary conversations about a Rush Hour 4 with Tucker and Chan showing interest. But fi rst, the comedian will be slaying
the BET Awards audience via his fi rst love — no-holds-barred, straight-from-the-hip hilarity that will no doubt leave everyone laughing themselves to tears.
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