Chris Tucker Fuels Comeback With 2011 Stand-Up Comedy Tour

Comedian Chris Tucker has been notably absent from the big screen in recent years.

After launching his career as a performer on Def Comedy Jam, Chris burst onto the movie scene in the late 1990s with roles in films such as Friday, The Fifth Element, Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2, then mostly disappeared, only appearing recently in the 2007 movie Rush Hour 3.

According to Chris, the long-term “hiatus” was largely due to being disappointed with the roles offered to him.

“They were too similar to the Detective Carter [Rush Hour] role,” Tucker told the New York Times in an exclusive interview, adding “frankly, [they] just weren’t good enough.”

Despite the downtime, Tucker stayed busy, honing the craft that originally brought him to Hollywood; and now he’s back, with a new comedy tour that he tells the Times is a mark of bigger things to come.

“It would only make me better to be more patient,” the 38-year-old Georgia native told the Times. “I was fearless with that. Because I believe in myself. And I believe that I can always come back in the business.”

Patience isn’t the only thing that has “changed” with Chris, who also says his current stand-up routine is a lot different from the one he performed when he was a 22-year-old nobody. Now, it’s more about the pitfalls of fame.

“People know I’m not broke like I was when I was 22. I have to talk from this angle, from where I’m at now,” he said, adding that the key to connecting with audiences was “to tell them the truth, so they can relate to you.”

Tucker’s stand-up tour starts August 19 in Long Beach, CA and makes its way across the country eventually ending in back in California for a Oakland performance on November 26.

For more information on the tour, go here.

Here is a clip showing some of Chris Tucker’s hilarious material from the past: