Why Jack Black was forbidden from watching ‘Rush Hour 2’: “No, don’t do it!”
Have you ever been forbidden from watching a film?
Perhaps as a kid there was a certain movie that was always off limits to you, and no matter how hard you tried to convince your parents that you were most definitely old enough to watch it, the only way you could consume this elusive, prohibited piece of media was to do it behind their backs.
Or maybe you obeyed them and did as you were told; to this day you’ve never seen that X-rated movie that your parents were convinced would stop you from getting a full night of sleep. For Jack Black, however, being told not to watch a certain film – under any circumstances – wasn’t for reasons you might think.
In fact, you’d assume that in this specific situation, Black would actually require a screening of the film, but instead, he was banned from doing so. I’m talking about Rush Hour 2, the Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker vehicle, which acts as a sequel to the 1998 box office smash Rush Hour.
Now, these buddy cop action films aren’t exactly the height of cinema – they’re no Citizen Kane or Metropolis – but the Rush Hour franchise is well-loved by many, and anyone born in the ‘80s or ‘90s likely grew up enjoying the easy viewing of these blockbuster hits.
However, Black simply passed these movies by. He was too busy emerging as a promising new star following the release of the television show Tenacious D and a breakout role in the comedy High Fidelity – he hardly had the time to watch buddy cop films. Yet, a few years later – his place in Hollywood firmly secured – Black found himself cast in a buddy comedy called Be Kind Rewind, directed by Michel Gondry, which required his character to recreate various movies, including Rush Hour 2. Because why not?
The only problem was, Black hadn’t seen Rush Hour, let alone Rush Hour 2. So, like the professional he is, the actor planned to sit down and watch the movies, but Gondry quickly banned him from doing so.
Talking to IndieLondon, Black revealed, “Well, the truth is I never saw Rush Hour 2, or 1 for that matter, so I don’t know if ours was better than that one. But I told Michel that I had to watch Rush Hour 2 to prepare for that scene and he said: ‘No, don’t do it!’”
Be Kind Rewind is a film about recreating movies, but even though Black hadn’t even seen any of the Rush Hour franchise, Gondry thought this would aid the actor’s interpretation. “So, I said: ‘But I don’t know what I’m recreating…’ And he replied: ‘It does not matter – it’s better this way. Do it from what you think it would be from the commercials you have seen.’ So, that’s how we did it. We didn’t re-watch any of the films.”
The movie wasn’t exactly a career highlight for either Black or Gondry, and with an inherently stupid concept at its core, it seems like it would’ve made no difference whether Black had seen Rush Hour 2 or not.
