With Tears In His Eyes…
According to Michael Ealy, the part the director included wasn’t a huge role.
“It wasn’t much, it was a bit part, but I was very grateful,” Michael elaborates in the interview. “The movie was shooting in New York and Chris Rock played a street hustler — like, he’s that guy who’s doing three-card monte in the park — and I played one of his best friends. I’m a young actor and I’m thrilled because this is my first movie.”
“We had to do some reshoots for the end of the movie so they asked me to come back a couple months later — I’m still waiting tables, so I take a day off from that — and we’re doing this wedding scene between Chris and Kerry and I’m the best man. So we’re about to shoot this scene, I’m in my tux, I come on set and Chris and Kerry are standing there and Joel is telling me where to stand. And right before he says action, Chris looks over at me and he says: ‘Oh (pause). Still in the business, huh?'”
“And when he said that, it was like a Mike Tyson left hook,” Ealy mentions. “And I knew he wasn’t joking around. I think maybe he was trying to disguise it as playful teasing, but it was a dig. For whatever reason, it was a dig: ‘You still in the business, huh?’”
