Longtime friends Haddish, Hart go to ‘Night School’
Stars sympathize with film character’s terrible part-time jobs and recall their own professional struggles.
NEW YORK – We’ve all suffered through that part-time job. For Kevin Hart’s high-school dropout Teddy in “Night School” (in theaters Friday), it’s hawking poultry while dressed in a chicken suit outside a Bible-thumping fried-food joint. Hart and co-star Tiffany Haddish’s pre-movie star stints were similarly bleak. He was fired from lifeguarding after a kid almost drowned right in front of him – “I didn’t know (what was happening), I thought it was funny,” Hart shrugs – while she was let go from a free clinic after insulting a patient who smelled like cauliflower.
“I was like, ‘Ooh, you stank,’ ” Haddish recalls. “The doctor was like, ‘We probably shouldn’t have you here,’ and I was like, ‘You right. I’m leaving, ’cause that’s nasty.’ ”
It’s just one example of the blunt, unfiltered personality that has made Haddish, 38, a breakout star since running away with Rrated comedy “Girls Trip” in summer 2017, which paved the way for her gut-busting (and Emmy-winning) turns as “Saturday Night Live” host, Groupon spokeswoman and loose-lipped courier of celeb- rity gossip.
But in “School,” Haddish reins in her manic energy to play devoted teacher Carrie, the no-nonsense straight woman to Hart’s hapless Teddy, who enrolls in evening classes so he can get his GED and keep his more successful fiancee (Megalyn Echikunwoke).
“Carrie pushes the story and Teddy along and really wants the best for him,” Haddish says. “I love playing the straight man because
then it’s more on the other person to be funny. But I remember even when we were shooting it, the scenes just felt so right and had so much heart in them – pun! Hart! Because he was in the scenes!”
Before “School,” Hart and Haddish appeared together in bit roles in the straight-to-video “School Dance” in 2014, although their real-life friendship goes back much further. The comedians first met performing stand-up and improv at comedy clubs around Los Angeles more than a decade ago: Hart was just starting to gain recognition from “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and the “Scary Movie” films, while Haddish was struggling to make ends meet as she played stages all over town.
“She was hungry,” says Hart, 39. (“I was, literally,” Haddish interjects.) “You wouldn’t be able to tell she was going through what she was going through by her appearance and her energy, unless she wanted you to know that stuff. I saw a girl who was in love with opportunity and comedy.”
After learning one night that Haddish was living out of her car, Hart encouraged her to make a list of goals and gave her $300 so she could stay in a motel.
“I’m always living my best life, even in the worst conditions, but it was definitely quite helpful,” Haddish says.
Although he refuses to let her pay him back now, he still gives her advice: “Don’t tell people what you’re about to do – just do it,” she reiterates. “And don’t put my initials on my gate because then people are gonna know where I live.”
Having befriended megastars Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce and Taylor Swift, Haddish says she has just about run through her bucket list of people she’d like to meet (“Elton John? Cicely Tyson?”). Her newly won Emmy sleeps in her bed, and she’s fully on board with Twitter’s suggestion to get her Emmys co-presenter Angela Bassett in the stillunannounced “Girls Trip 2.” (“That’d be great – I’d love to work with her in any capacity.”)
And with two more movies, “The Oath” and “Nobody’s Fool,” set for release this fall, Haddish is “handling (the spotlight) as good as she can,” assures Hart, who himself has sequels to hits “The Secret Life of Pets” and “Jumanji” out next year. “You have to understand that it all happens so fast and can go away faster, so it’s all about making smart decisions and surrounding yourself with people who have your best interests.”
As for what she misses most about life prefame?
Her ribald answer “might be too much for USA TODAY, so I’ll just say ‘the intimacy of a man,’ ” Haddish quips. “There’s no relationships right now because there’s no time! You men need a lot of attention.”
“I love playing the straight man because then it’s more on the other person to be funny.”
Tiffany Haddish