Kevin Hart’s Funny Business
After the Staples show, Hart makes a quick exit and heads in the Sprinter to a tiny airfield in Van Nuys, where a small chartered jet awaits. No identification is needed to board. No seat belts are fastened. A pretty woman dressed all in black takes drink and food orders. Hart retires to the back, covers up with a blanket and falls asleep. When the plane lands the next morning at an airstrip in Bedford, Massachusetts, it’s drizzling outside. Three luxury SUVs await on the tarmac, feet from the plane. In the strip’s office, a worker in a bright-orange reflective vest says that when Dwayne Johnson flew in the other day, “all the women who work here were trying to get a look at him,” but it’s early now, and no one’s around to gawk at Hart. Parrish and the kids take one SUV to a house they’ve rented in the suburb of Winchester. Hart, operating on no more than four hours of sleep, takes another SUV to the set.
The film Hart’s shooting with Johnson is an action comedy called Central Intelligence. The first shot of the day requires the co-stars to be hoisted up on harnesses in front of a 40-by-45-foot blue backdrop. In the movie, it will look as though they’ve just jumped from a building. As Hart and the Rock regard the looming crane that will be taking them airborne, they rib each other.
“I’m gonna be shitting on you all day!” Hart tells him.
“Shut your mouth!” says the Rock. He turns to me: “Watch Kevin piss his pants up there.”
Hart’s job, over dozens of ensuing takes, is essentially to shout, “Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck!” or simply shriek unintelligibly while feigning free fall. It is tedious, repetitive work, but he does it with full-throated conviction each time.
Between setups, Hart has returned to solid ground, at which point the director, Rawson Marshall Thurber, walks over to the tent where Hart’s standing. Hart is wearing a sweater under the hot midday sun, bouncing in place, awaiting the next take. I say it looks like he’s having a great time up on the wire. “I’m not!” he replies. Thurber grins, slaps Hart affectionately on the shoulder and says that he’s a master at hiding his fatigue behind a facade of manic enthusiasm. “Kevin is like my dad when you put on a movie,” Thurber says. “If he stops moving, he’ll fall asleep.”
Hart nods his head vigorously, pretends to pass out, then snaps his eyes open wide and laughs. “Can’t stop!” he cries.
He shifts his weight from foot to foot, bouncing in place. “If you sit me still, we’re in trouble!
Kevin Hart’s Funny Business, Page 9 of 9