Savoring life in the slow lane

You can hear the weariness in his voice, but also sense his steely 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 says over a lunch of chopped salad at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills. “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. I just wanted to do a good job.”

But “Rush Hour” ignited a blockbuster franchise for New Line Cinema, and in the process, it turned Tucker into a $20-million-a-picture man.

That landed him in the Hollywood stratosphere alongside top earners Tom Cruise, Will Smith and Tom Hanks, and there were predictions that he’d be the next Eddie Murphy. A certain momentum builds when enough people see your movies to bring in more than half a billion dollars worldwide.

Distancing yourself from a vehicle like that isn’t the usual response. But instead of parlaying his popularity into a crush of new projects, the tall, lean stand-up with the motor-mouth delivery largely dropped from sight after the second movie hit six years ago. Now, with “Rush Hour 3,” for which he’s taking home a hefty $25 million, in the theaters, he’s mapping his steps toward something new -- and facing questions about whether his fans will follow him as he trades his James Carter persona for other roles, some of which have nothing at all to do with entertainment.

Tucker was reluctant to do “Rush Hour 3,” he admitted, “because they wanted me to sign on without a script. I’m not going to sign on to a movie without something because I know if I don’t see a script and put my input into it, that can be dangerous.”

As for whether the self-imposed hiatus between his last two films hurt his chance to follow Murphy’s path, Tucker could not care less. “I don’t want to be Eddie Murphy. I want to be like me. I don’t want to be a carbon copy of anybody because Eddie Murphy is great because he’s Eddie Murphy. Richard Pryor is great because he was Richard Pryor. My journey is different. I’m different from Eddie Murphy. He definitely inspired me, but I didn’t want to become him because I knew I couldn’t become him. I knew I could only become Chris Tucker.”

Becoming Chris Tucker meant using his newfound fame and fortune to set up the Chris Tucker Foundation, with a determination to fight poverty in the U.S. and in Africa. He traveled to Africa in 2001, to do “Rush Hour” publicity, and the next year, MTV sent him back, this time with U2 singer Bono and then-Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill, for a documentary on how U.S. money would help African countries plagued with AIDS, unsanitary living conditions and hunger. Along the way, he met with kings and presidents from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East.

The visits were life-changing, said Tucker’s sister Tammye Stocks, who acts as administrator of his foundation, based in the Atlanta suburb of Stockbridge. Seeing people without access to clean water and medicine, “He didn’t believe it,” she said. “He said, ‘They don’t really have anything over there.’ I’m thinking when he went there and saw people dying and not having anything and not having parents, that really made him want to help out. . . . For Chris to see kids in Africa lacking the basic necessities really got to him.”

“I was in Africa long before Oprah opened up a school,” Tucker said. “A lot of people didn’t know about what I was doing because I didn’t publicize the stuff.”

Currently, his charity, which has been up and running for about 2 1/2 years, helps the needy in Boys and Girls Clubs in Atlanta, but his longer-term hope is to provide clean water to villages in Ghana and to fund projects that help fight AIDS in Africa.

Brett Ratner, who directed Tucker in all three “Rush Hour” films as well as the earlier film “Money Talks,” said it’s testimony to Tucker’s charity work that he now calls world leaders his friends.

“I thought I was the one who was worldly, sophisticated, well-traveled and educated with life experiences and friends,” Ratner said. “But this guy, he’s mingled with some of the great leaders [of our time].”

If Tucker’s career languished during that time, it doesn’t bother him at all, the actor said. “I guess I wasn’t ready to make movie after movie. I was reading a lot of stuff. A lot of [scripts] came my way and nothing sparked my interest. So I continued to travel. I was also writing my own projects. I wasn’t really stressing on doing any movies. I was really busy. I was traveling to 14 different countries in Africa. I was busy being a celebrity.”

He questions the imperative to pile on projects after a hit. “Most people do that because they feel they have to strike while the iron is hot. I wasn’t even focused on that. I felt I’m not going to do that unless it’s right. It’s easy to say, ‘I’m going to do this movie because I want the movie out by next year.’ There were a million movies I could have done, but I didn’t want to waste my time if it’s something that didn’t inspire me or I enjoyed doing. I think I was looking for something fulfilling.”

Limelight as class clown

Tucker’s roots are modest. His father ran a cleaning business in Decatur, Ga., providing the family -- Tucker is the youngest of six children -- with a middle-class lifestyle. Had he not become a stand-up comedian, Tucker said, “I probably would have gotten into the cleaning business and parlayed that into something else.” Now 35, he laughs as he sheepishly confesses that his official biographies depict him as being a year younger. He is unmarried, shares custody of his young son and lives in Tarzana.

It was his hosting of a high school talent show back in Georgia that sparked his interest in comedy. He recalls how, during P.E. classes, while students were seated in the bleachers, he would get up and begin mimicking the sing-song style of black preachers. (He grew up going to a Pentecostal church every Sunday.) He would tell the teachers in the gym to stand up and then he’d call out: “That’s what I’m talking about! The devil is coming in here through the teachers! Lucifer don’t care who he destroys! He’s coming!”

His big break came when the public saw him on “Russell Simmons’ Def Comedy All-Star Jam” in 1992 on HBO. Soon, he was getting small parts in films, such as Johnny Booze in 1994’s “House Party 3,” his first feature role. There was talk of casting Wesley Snipes or Martin Lawrence in “Rush Hour,” but Tucker believes he got the part because “the studio knew my fan base, knew I was fresh and new and coming up and a lot of people were pushing from different angles.”

Today, he minimizes the behind-the-scenes contract negotiations after the success of “Rush Hour” that made him rich beyond his wildest dreams.

“You know, it was the movie,” he said. “I couldn’t have got it if the movie hadn’t been accepted. It did good in the States and around the world. I said, ‘You know what? These guys are making the same amount of money [with their movies], I thought it was only fair [that I did too].”

Comedy and ka-ching

Bill MECHANIC, the former 20th Century Fox studio chief who is now a producer, said it wasn’t too shocking that Tucker landed a $45-million, two-picture deal for “Rush Hour” sequels. He noted that hot comedians such as Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler all command top dollar for their comedies.

Still, Mechanic said, “I don’t think anybody hiring him for a movie now would give him that level because he’s been out of the public eye.”

During his hiatus from films, Tucker occasionally got caught up in controversy. There was his arrest in 2005 for speeding and eluding police during a brief car chase near Atlanta when he reportedly drove a Bentley 109 mph and told authorities he didn’t hear the sirens because he was on his way to church.

But that’s a distant blip and, already, there is talk of doing “Rush Hour 4.”

Though Arthur Sarkissian, one of the “Rush Hour” producers, says it would be unreasonable to let another long period elapse before a new sequel, Tucker doesn’t seem to be clearing his calendar. His current plans are to take his stand-up act on the road this fall and to make a theatrical film in the vein of Murphy’s “Raw.” He said he also has a script in development about America’s first black president, a film that he would star in and produce.

While he’s dead set on returning to acting full time, Tucker said Africa isn’t far from his mind. He recalls, for instance, the time he met Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

“He was coming in the room saying, ‘Chris Tucker. My grandkids want to meet Chris Tucker.’ I’m going, ‘Huh? I want to meet him.’ So I went up to him and said, ‘I’m Chris Tucker.’ I got a picture of me sitting between Bill Clinton and Mandela. It’s just like Forrest Gump, man. My life has been like Forrest Gump. Just crazy stuff.”

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robert.welkos@latimes.com