AVC: Was that close to who you actually are? Or was that just the Brett Ratner persona that you're putting on?
BR: [Laughs.] No. I was putting it on. I mean, there are 20 girls at my house with bikinis on at all times, but otherwise, the rest of that was not true.
AVC: Do you think you would have handled the situation the way the Brett Ratner of Entourage did? Would you have been won over by [Kevin Dillon's character's] pluck and moxie?
BR: I ask my assistants if they're retarded all the time. [Laughs.] When the camera is on you, of course, actors have the ability to make it real. For me, if I'm not talking, it is a problem, I'll tell you that. I have so much more respect for actors now, after being in front of the camera, and I realize that the hardest part is when you're not talking. Listening is harder than just acting. Listening is the hardest part. When Johnny Drama was talking to me, I was like, "Oh shit, what's going on?" You'll notice the camera's on him when he's talking to me, because I'm looking around trying to remember my lines.
AVC: You were in Black And White as well.
BR: I was in Black And White. Jackie Chan has asked me several times that I should be the third wheel in Rush Hour 4, but it's not happening. [Laughs.]
AVC: What do you remember about Black And White?
BR: [James Toback]'s my favorite director. I mean, he's my favorite person, let me say. He happens to be a director. He's a fascinating guy. He is brilliant. He's a genius. For me, I could have never directed Black And White, because I'm too close to hip-hop, I'm too close to white people loving black culture. That's why he put me in it. When I was in the hood, and Wu-Tang comes up to me, that was real. I wasn't being anything I wasn't. I'm not a white guy who thinks I'm black, I just love black music. I love black movies.
CT: You love black women. [Laughs.]
BR: I love everything black, because black is cool. When something crosses over, people are like, "Oh, this is a crossover." First of all, there is no urban anymore. Pop culture is black. White kids are dressing like black kids. It's all crossed the lines now. The way I understand it is, everything black is cool. When it crosses over to white, that means it's going from cool to uncool. That's what crossover is. Since I was a kid, all the kids who were dancing, the best dancers, were black. The fastest runners were black. The flyest dressers were black. When I was a kid, they used to wear Fila. They were always the trend-setting, cutting-edge, coolest people. That's who I wanted to engage myself with, those people. I was just attracted to that, and that's what I understand, and that's whey we're sitting here today, that's how this all came up, because I was fascinated with hip-hop music and black comedy. Kung fu was a big part of it. Chris watched martial arts movies, I watch them, so I did the same thing in Miami Beach, being a tacky Jew from Miami, as a hip-hop kid would do. If you become a rapper, you get a Rolex with diamonds on it. That's all I wanted. Same sensibilities, basically. I think the minority is very similar. White people are completely different, but I'm Jewish, so I'm like a black man. [Laughs.]
AVC: So Chris, speaking of black music, you're probably the only man in the world who's appeared in videos for both Michael Jackson and Tupac. Can you kind of compare and contrast the two?
CT: I almost died over in Tupac's video. I was in the back of a Jeep, and I was being young, and crazy, and we was in a desert going over these sand dunes. Michael Clarke Duncan, from Green Mile, grabbed me, because I didn't know we was going over sand dunes. I'm in the video like, "Yaaaah!" It was a helicopter shot. It was like, what do you call it? The Warrior?
BR: Road Warrior.
CT: Yeah, Road Warrior. So I'm playing this crazy guy, and if he didn't grab my back, I would have fell over the thing. That's what I remember about the Tupac video. And I met a fine girl on the video set. With Michael Jackson, it was just working with the legend and working with someone that I admired. That was incredible. A lot of my career, I judge it off Michael, because Michael didn't go out, he didn't do an album every year. He did an album every five years, and he'll come out and make a big thing. He never really overexposed himself. I think I learned a lot watching him, and not overexposing myself in a lot of ways.
AVC: Was that the beginning of your friendship with him, working on that video?
CT: We knew of each other. Of course I knew Michael Jackson. If you watch all my movies, there's something to do with Michael in them, for some reason. I guess because I grew up with him. And Scarface, I grew up watching Scarface all the time. That started around Rush Hour 2, yeah, that's when I met him. I was in New York, and I called and said, "I want to meet Michael. Is Michael around?" Couldn't get in touch with him. Flew all the way in a private plane back to L.A., and as soon as I landed and I checked my messages, Michael's people called and said, "Chris, Michael want to meet with you in the morning." I went up to the cockpit, I told the pilots to fly me back to New York, because I'm going to meet with Michael Jackson tomorrow at the Four Seasons Hotel. They said, "What? We've got to call the office, we can't just do this shit." They called the office, and they said, "Alright. Another $50,000." Flew me back to New York, landed, met with Michael that morning, then flew back to L.A. that night. I didn't even leave the plane. We were just taxiing on the runway, checking my messages. That's the first time I ever met Michael. I was on a private plane, in L.A., flew back. That's when I met him. I never told you that. I got crazy, like I spent a lot of money.
AVC: What was kind of your impression of Michael Jackson?
CT: He's just a normal person. Nice. He's a very kind person, nice. Really shy. Just a lot of fun to be around, because he's just nice.
AVC: Do you think he's misunderstood?
CT: Yeah, he's misunderstood, because he's had a different life. He's accomplished so much in his life, and he's so talented. He's just a genius.
BR: He doesn't really belong on this planet. He's the most important figure in the history of music. He'll be remembered far longer than George Bush will. 200 years from now, people will be talking about Michael Jackson, and no one's going to mention George Bush.
AVC: I remember growing up, he was the most famous person in the world.
BR: It's not even that. It's like the people who create something. Mozart is much more famous than Napoleon, for instance. Mozart is creating something that's lasting forever in music. Michael does not even belong. It's like God is channeling through him. Even if he sits here with us, and just sings like three notes, it's like, "Oh my God." It's beyond anything. I've worked with a hundred of the biggest artists in the world, from Madonna to Mariah Carey, and he is just beyond. He's at a whole other level, spiritually. He's got the God spot. Everyone has it, everyone has that God spot, but it's just the way he's in tune with it. He has it. It's right there, and when he starts to sing, God has just opened it up for him. That's why he's not comfortable around people and things, because he's just such a unique—he feels blessed just to be himself. "I can't believe I'm Michael Jackson." [Laughs.] That's what it is, really. He is one of the most unique people. I've spent a lot of time with him, so has Chris. Just sitting in the back of a car, and music playing, and then him, he moves like God is going through him. Not to knock Usher or anybody else, but you see when they're dancing, they're like, "One, two, three, four." He's just like, natural. He's amazing, he really is amazing. He's got a bad rap, but the truth is, he's a child. Michael Jackson never grew up, but that's what makes him so special.
CT: That's what he says about Brett. "I like Brett, because he's just a kid. He never lost that essence."
BR: Mike has the mind of a kid, and when you have the mind of a kid, you're smarter than an adult. You see through all the BS. Kids, you know how they are? They just say the truth.
AVC: There's a sort of purity to it.
BR: Purity to it. He's a pure person. There's no malicious intent in him at all. He's a kid. That's the true essence of a kid. There's nobody more kid-like than Michael Jackson. People may say, "Oh, he needs to grow up, he's a 40-something-year-old man," but the truth is, that's what makes him special. He sees the world in a different way. He can read the mind of an adult better than an adult can read his mind. That's what makes him so special.
CT: And he understands that, because that's what he told me about Brett. [Laughs.]
BR: "Brett's an asshole." "No, Brett's great!" That's what we all have in common. See, that's the thing. Michael loves movies. He loves entertainment. He loves music. We spent all our time with him watching movies. Listening to music. Dancing. Singing. Having fun. Every time Chris would leave the house, we'd be in Miami, and he'd go with Michael Jackson. "Where'd you go?" "Oh, we just went to Barry Gibb's house and we were just singing Bee Gees songs."
CT: Him and Barry Gibb were singing with each other. It was crazy.
BR: [Imitates Barry Gibb.]
CT: Michael singing, [Michael Jackson voice] "How deep is your love, is your love."
AVC: Chris, Friday made you a hero to millions of potheads. What's is like being a stoner icon? Is there any downside to that?
CT: You know, it's good. People come to my house and knock on my door, like little white kids in my neighborhood that I don't even know, and ask me do I want to smoke weed. Hell, no. That movie was 10 years ago. But no, it's great. That movie is going to stand the test of time, because that's where I was in my life. I was a young kid, and I knew I could play that part. I think people fell in love with the part because they related to it. Everybody grew up with those characters around them. They was harmless, too. Guys sitting around on porches, having a good time, smoking weed, talking about his friend who got fired, and he don't have a job, and smoked up all his weed by accident, and somebody looking for him. You know, getting in trouble in the neighborhood. Everybody has done that. When I first seen the movie, I said, "Man, this movie's not that funny." Yeah, but what did I know?
AVC: But were you high at the time?
CT: A little bit. [Laughs.] Naw, naw, I wasn't. You can't make a movie high. Rush Hour we smoked a lot of weed. That's a whole other story, though. [Laughs.] Naw, I didn't stay in character, but it was a good movie to do. We had a lot of fun.
AVC: Brett, one of your next projects is the Hugh Hefner biopic. What is your take on Hugh Hefner? What's your vision of what this movie will be?
BR: A lot of naked girls in it. [Laughs.]
AVC: Are people going to see it for the story or for the pictures?
BR: Both. Everyone says, "Why do you read Playboy?" "Oh, for the articles." I'm not making the movie for the naked girls. Playboy, everyone in the world, no matter who you are or where you're from, you know that Playboy symbol. You don't really know what Hugh Hefner's done for the sexual revolution. He's the first person to put Lenny Bruce on TV when this guy was the most cutting-edge comedian.
AVC: Dick Gregory as well.
BR: Yeah. He was the first person to show black people dancing with white people in public. On television, when they weren't even associating with each other. Back in the day, he was putting black and white people together. He was showing that the girl next door is really an object of beauty. He was a big part of the sexual revolution in this country, and freedom and rights. He was very supportive of women's right, civil rights, freedom of speech. He did so much for this country, especially with the sexual revolution, that I think that it's worth making a movie about him. And of course, the parties and the naked girls. [Laughs.] But his whole philosophy, the Playboy philosophy, is anybody should be able to do whatever they want, and have as much fun as they want, as long as they're not hurting anybody else. That's what I got out of it, when I read this. You know, life is good, let's enjoy this.
CT: Yeah, call some girls in here. [Laughs.]
BR: [Laughs.] Yeah, let's have fun. That's my thinking as well. He's a fascinating guy, and a brilliant guy, and it'll be a fun movie.
AVC: Have you thought about casting Chris in the lead role?
CT: I'll be there.
BR: Yeah, he'll be on the set. No, Chris and I have a lot more work to do together. This is just the beginning of our careers. Chris, as you know, is a brilliant stand-up, and I wanted him for a long time to go on the road and do some stand-up so we could make a movie out of it. We're really looking to do a feature like Delirious, or Eddie Murphy: Raw, or Richard Pryor Live On The Sunset Strip. We're going to do a concert film, Chris has movies that he's developing. We make a good team, and we're just going to keep working together.
AVC: What's the best part of being Chris Tucker and Brett Ratner, respectively?
BR: All the girls. [Laughs.]
CT: You know, the fans. Like I said, kids come up, and there's a lot of stuff in our movies that the kids love. So, kids come up to me, being noticed all over the world, being in Africa, [adopts African accent] "Chris Tucker, what are you doing here!" The fans, really. That's my reward.
BR: There's no greater feeling than people coming up to me and going, "Man, my father was dying, and we went to see Rush Hour, and it was the greatest night we had in years together. We sat in that theater and we laughed for two hours without stopping. That was just a great memory that I had before my father died." Entertaining people, helping people forget about their problems in their life, and bringing people around the world together, and telling stories. We're storytellers. We love telling stories. When he does stand-up, he tells stories, and when I make my movies, I tell stories. We love telling stories. That's what we were born to do. We're blessed to have figured that out at an early age and do it, and make people happy, make a lot of people happy around the world. I think that gives us joy. And because when you love what you do, my dream, I don't know about Chris, but I never had a dream about having a private jet—
CT: I still don't have one. Although, I'm saying, I will one day.
BR: Having a mansion, or having all of these Ferraris. You get that because you're good at your job. His dream was to do movies, and make stand-up, and do all that stuff, and all that stuff comes eventually.
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