Highlights
- Bruce Willis advised Chris Tucker not to star in The Fifth Element, potentially believing it could ruin his career.
- Tucker's commitment to his role as Ruby Rhod in The Fifth Element paid off, as many fans consider him to be the best part of the movie.
- Tucker credits the director, Luc Besson, for not listening to his suggestions and allowing him to fully embrace and excel in his role as Ruby Rhod.
Over the last several years, news about Bruce Willis has been dominated by his retirement and revelations about his mental state. Fortunately for fans of Willis' who couldn't get enough of the many hit movies he starred in, it is clear that the actor has a lot of love in his life thanks to his loyal family.
One of Willis' hit movies was the incredible sci-fi action movie The Fifth Element in which the actor shared the screen with Chris Tucker. Years before Tucker co-starred with Jackie Chan and those two actors became friends, he was given surprising advice from Willis, don't star in The Fifth Element.
Why Did Bruce Willis Warn Chris Tucker About The Fifth Element?
Throughout the '80s and '90s, Bruce Willis became one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Willis did this by starring in a long list of beloved films including the Die Hard movies, Pulp Fiction, 12 Monkeys, and more.
Given Willis' track record of success, it makes sense that he was sought out to star in The Fifth Element. After all, The Fifth Element is a sci-fi action comedy that may have been difficult to promote to general audiences without Willis involved.
Once Willis signed on to star in The Fifth Element, the movie's other stars must have been excited to star in the film with him. After all, it would be exciting to share the screen with someone that famous. On top of that, since Willis believed The Fifth Element was worth starring in, it had to seem more likely that the movie had potential.
On top of Willis having a good track record of picking projects for himself, he also had a history of giving other movie stars good advice. A perfect example of that is before Demi Moore starred in Ghost, Willis' influence helped her to commit to her vision for her character so much that she cut her hair short.
Unfortunately for one of Willis' The Fifth Element co-stars, his first introduction to his famous co-star must have been upsetting. The reason for that is that Willis gave Chris Tucker the advice that he may not want to star in The Fifth Element when it was too late for the comedic actor to back out.
In 2015, Tucker participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session to promote his standup comedy special Chris Tucker - Live which streamed on Netflix. During that session, Tucker was asked about a wide array of subjects including Jackie Chan, Marvel/DC roles, why he disappeared for years, and more.
While all of those subjects are interesting, it could easily be argued that the best question Tucker was asked related to The Fifth Element. During the session, Reddit user r/shivan21 asked Tucker, "What are your best and funniest memories from The Fifth Element shooting?"
In all likelihood, that Reddit user expected Tucker to talk about his outrageous outfits in The Fifth Element. Failing that, maybe they thought Tucker would have a funny blooper to tell him about or something like that.
As it turns out, however, Tucker wrote about the time Bruce Willis told him he may be ruining his career.
"Probably when Bruce Willis came up to me on the first day of shooting, looked at my outfit and said 'do you know this could ruin your career?' Then Luc Besson yelled ACTION before I had a chance to quit, and I'm so glad he did."
At the moment that Willis told Tucker that he might be ruining his career, it is hard to imagine how distraught that could have made the comedic actor. After all, it was far too late for him to quit and not gain a terrible reputation in Hollywood.
Related: How Bruce Willis' Wife Is Really Dealing With The Actor's Dementia Battle Behind The Scenes
It also is worth noting that for Tucker to play Ruby Rhod effectively, he had to totally commit. An over-the-top character, if Tucker let Willis destroy his commitment to the role at that moment, his performance would have fallen on its face.
Fortunately for Tucker, The Fifth Element definitely didn't destroy his career the way Willis thought it might have. Instead, The Fifth Element was successful at the box office and then became a cult classic that was fully embraced on home media.
More importantly for Tucker, many The Fifth Element fans think that he was the best part of the movie. The only other character that many fans believe was as entertaining as Ruby Rhod is Gary Oldman's Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg.
Why Is Chris Tucker Happy That The Fifth Element's Director Refused His Ideas?
In the years since The Fifth Element's 1997 release, Chris Tucker has had a lot to say about the film. A perfect example of that is Tucker once revealed how he found out that the pop star Prince was refused to play Ruby Rhod in The Fifth Element.
According to Tucker, he met Prince at a club after the music legend had his people seek out the comedy actor. Once they started to get to know each other, Tucker says that Prince brought up The Fifth Element to him.
“He said, ‘You played that part in Fifth Element. I was supposed to play that part,' I said, ‘For real?’ He said, ‘Well, I didn’t like the costumes. I didn’t like those.’ And I looked at him and I said, ‘But you got your butt hanging out your pants!’ He said, ‘But this is my design, my design.’”
While that story is wild to learn, it is even more interesting to know what Tucker told GQ about The Fifth Element. When GQ asked Tucker to break down his most memorable roles, he revealed that his role from The Fifth Element is one of his favorite characters he ever played.
Amazingly enough, however, Tucker went on to reveal the hilarious reason why he loves his Ruby Rhod performance. According to Tucker, one of the keys to the character's success was that the movie's director Luc Besson didn't listen to the actor.
"If I would've found out what I was wearing, I probably would've said, 'Nah, nah, nah.' But I'm so glad I didn't because it's one of my favorite roles. I definitely did some different type of all, you know--tell 'em to try to make this that way. But they were speaking French and they kind of gave me the 52 fakes."
Tucker continued, "They did what they wanted to do. But I'm glad they did because that's what Luc Besson wanted and that was what the character was. And it made me go into the character more if I would've did it my way, so I'm glad they didn't listen to me."
