Chris Tucker Discusses Only Making $10k Playing Smokey In Friday [Video]

Chris Tucker reveals he only made $10,000 playing Smokey in the classic movie Friday starring Ice Cube.

Source: Brandon Williams / @Bwill_2live

Chris Tucker has starred in several blockbuster Hollywood films and is, without a doubt, a household name. Before he rose to fame, his role as Smokey in the classic movie Friday paved the way. As one of his first roles in the industry, he knocked his role out of the park. Even to this day, people still want him to reprise the role and make another installment of the Friday series alongside Ice Cube.

When the sequels in the franchise happened, people were quick to notice he wasn’t a part of the films and never really received a direct reason why. Recently, Chris appeared on Shannon Sharpe’s podcast, CLUB SHAY SHAY, as a guest and talked about his iconic career. During the interview, Shannon brought up how one of his starting roles gave him so much staying power in the culture. Surprisingly enough, he revealed that he only made $10,000 playing his character, Smokey. It wasn’t due to anything shady, but the fact it was a low-budget film only spending $2 million dollars with 20 days to film the entire movie.

“It’s one of those things—it was just a small movie,” Tucker explained during the interview. “We filmed it in 20 days. I got about $10,000 for it or whatever, I didn’t care. I wanted the opportunity.”

Tucker shared that because the movie was on such a tight budget, the actors had only 2 takes for every scene, and if they couldn’t land it, their role would be scrapped from the film completely.

“It was that small of a movie, but that was the beauty of it,” Tucker added. “It allowed me to get into character. It wasn’t no big distractions like big movie sets. You got light people and sound people and everybody wanna be a star. But that movie was just a camera and me and Cube on the porch. Magic came out of it, thank God.”

It’s refreshing to hear from Chris with him openly talk about this impact and thought process on the film. You can watch the segment below and the full podcast here.