How Kevin Hart Became Hollywood's Most Reliable Comedy Star

When Think Like A Man was released in 2012, the film was marketed as a big-cast, big-laughs ensemble comedy. But after it proved an unexpected hit, the obvious breakout was 34-year-old comedian/actor Kevin Hart, who now looks like one of the biggest box-office draws around. This week’s sequel Think Like A Man Too is poised to join Ride Along as Hart’s second smash of 2014.

Hart’s hard-won, slow-burn success is no surprise: His current stardom is the result of a decade-long journey that took him from fledging comedy act to A-list headliner. Here are the steps he took that helped bring on Hollywood’s current Hart attack:

1) He Built Relationships Early

After dropping out of community college in 1998, Hart set out to be a standup after getting encouragement from co-workers. At first, his routine (performed under the name Lil’ Kev), borrowed too much from idols like Chris Tucker, but he soon switched to more personal material focusing on his own life and failings. He spent years traveling from his native Philadelphia to New York to gig for $25 a night, eventually landing a manager and meetings in L.A. He signed a deal with ABC and was cast in a pilot called North Hollywood, created by Judd Apatow and co-starring Jason Segel and Amy Poehler. The series didn’t go forward, but Hart remained close with Apatow, who put him in the short-lived college sitcom Undeclared, and gave him a role in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. From that point on, Hart went from one supporting film role to the next — from spoof Soul Plane to rom-com Along Came Polly — without ever breaking out on his own. But he built relationships that would pay off years later, and he always had big dreams. Pal Seth Rogen told GQ: “You’d call his cell phone and another guy would answer ‘Hartbeat Productions!'… He’s always been like that, even when he was a stand-up comic from Philly who I’d never heard of.’”

2) He Keeps Broadening His Appeal

Throughout his career, Hart’s been defined by two key traits: He works incredibly hard, and he always sets out to have as wide a fan base as possible. Even as his standup tours grew, Hart still found time to squeeze in four or five movie and TV projects a year — with the roles getting bigger and bigger each the time. Though he’s always strived to please his core African American audience — from Soul Plane to his clever, self-deprecating BET series Real Husbands of Hollywood — Hart still mixes it up, appearing in both cultish, hipster comedies (Party Down, Workaholics) and broad mainstream hits like Little Fockers and Modern Family. He plays to every quadrant and demographic, a fact that speaks as much to his onscreen likability as it does to his business savvy. “I don’t think [my audience is] necessarily white people or black people,” he told the New York Times in 2012. “It’s people in general. If you want to appeal to everyone, you can’t do a world tour and expect black people to show up at every date — when you’re in Australia, when you’re in Dubai, when you’re in Indonesia.”

3) He’s Never Been Afraid of His Flaws

In 2009, Hart took his first hourlong comedy set on the road (it would later be released as the TV special I’m A Grown Little Man). Since his mid-‘00s breakthrough, he’d gotten married, had two kids, and then gotten divorced. As a result, his personal life was front and center during his show, whether he was talking about the collapse of his marriage, his relationship with his recovering addict father, or his mother’s death from cancer. Hart’s openness and vulnerability is a huge part of his appeal, as he acknowledged to Rolling Stone in 2012: “When you talk about your flaws, people gravitate to you. I’m just not that manly-man.” It’s this approachability and lack of machismo that makes him the rare stand-up that appeals to men and women equally. And that’s reflected by the success of his concert movies: 2011’s Laugh at My Pain and 2013’s Let Me Explain — both of which he financed himself — were sleeper hits, despite not having the marketing machine of a major studio behind them.Hart’s hustle has become an important part of his public persona, as evidenced by the recent Vitaminwater ad, which places his work ethic front and center.

4) He Minimizes His Risks

The success of Laugh at My Pain made Hollywood take notice, eventually leading to Think Like a Man, which grossed a whopping $91 million, and made him a standalone movie star. Yet he’s continued taking smaller roles, including this year’s About Last Night (another ensemble) and Ride Along (in which he was second-billed after Ice Cube). The latter was a huge success, grossing $134 million — nearly as much as 21 Jump Street — and cementing Hart’s place as a legitimate box-office draw. If the films don’t work, he’s insulated from blame, and if they hit, he still gets at least some of the credit. Going forward, it looks like he’s sticking to that plan, teaming with Will Ferrell on Get Hard, Chris Rock on Finally Famous and Seth Rogen on Jazz Cops.  And it’s the smart move. The formula is working, so there’s no reason to mix it up. For now, at least, fans want to ride along with anything that Hart chooses to do.

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Photo credit: © Film Magic