Chris Tucker Reveals He Was Paid $10K For Playing Smokey on 'Friday'

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Friday has remained a cult classic — or as Ice Cube would reference, a ‘hood classic’ — since its release in 1995. Hence why fans were surprised to learn that Chris Tucker was only paid $10,000 to play the hilarious, loud-mouthed, and iconic Smokey.

“It’s one of those things — it was just a small movie,” shared Tucker in a new episode of Shannon Sharpe‘s Shay Shay. “We filmed it in 20 days. I got about $10,000 for it or whatever, I didn’t care. I wanted the opportunity.”

When speaking on the staying power and the praise from the film, the 49-year-old humbly explained that the budget for the film was between $2 million and $3 million. As a result of the low budget, the actors were only allowed two takes for each scene or their part would be cut.

“It was that small of a movie but that was the beauty of it,” he recalled. “It allowed me to get into character. It wasn’t no big distractions like big movie sets. You go 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.”

The Rush Hour actor included what it was like to be on set with his best friend, Faizon Love, who played Big Worm.

“We were best friends. We clowned around all day, every day,” Tucker said. “It was so easy to work with him but we were laughing a lot. Faizon would laugh all the time because he looking at me like, ‘Look at him trying to be serious.'”

Tell us: Are you surprised by this discovery?

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