Ludacris Is Living the Dream

Ludacris is a rockstar and a movie star—and yes, he absolutely knows it. But the 45-year-old multihyphenate, whose real name is Chris Bridges, has stayed surprisingly low-key over the years. Think about it. He’s one of the longest-tenured stars of Fast & Furious, where the only thing often bigger than the muscles are the egos, and all matter of beefs have caused cast members to remove themselves from the films. Yet it’s the rapper with four number-one albums and three Grammys who’s just enjoying the ride.

Ludacris recognizes the irony. It only adds to his charm—which extends even to those who wouldn’t necessarily call themselves a rap or Fast fan. C’mon, everyone loves Luda! I tell him that’s exactly why he was at the top of Esquire’s "Fast & Furious Week" wish list. Ludacris then does something he doesn’t do enough of. He takes a moment. Forces himself to stay still. "I’ll be honest with you," he says. "I need to hear you say shit like that in order for it to become a reality to me. That makes me feel fucking phenomenal.”

The man's kindness has long caught people off guard. When Universal gave Ludacris his first major acting role in 2003’s 2 Fast 2 Furious, as the family's go-to tech expert, Tej Parker, he was as hot as it gets in the rap game. The artist's sophomore studio album, Word of Mouf, was tearing up the charts and landed him squarely amidst the crop of the genre's next best MCs. “I remember being called on set two, three hours before I was actually really supposed to be there,” Ludacris once told me. “I didn't realize until after the movie that they thought I was going to show up late every day. They thought I'd have a 50-fucking-people entourage with me, weed smoke all over the place, messing up the whole damn scene. I did none of that stuff. I was sitting in my trailer for hours, like, When do we shoot?”

Or take it from Michael Ealy, who recounted how he lost out on the role of Tej to Ludacris—so he arrived in Miami to film his smaller 2 Fast part with “a little bit of salt” toward his famous costar. “When I met him, all of that instantly washed away,” says Ealy, who appeared in Barbershop. “Luda came up to me and was like, ‘Yo, I love what you did in Barbershop. I'm glad you're doing this.’ I was staying in a hotel—and somehow I brought up that I needed to do laundry. Luda was like, ‘I got a house, just come over and do your laundry there.’ I'm thinking to myself, I'm going to go to Luda's house, in South Beach, and hang out and do laundry? My life is different. And I did it! I went to his house, did laundry, and hung out.”

Twenty years after that memorable laundry outing, Ludacris and Fast & Furious are still cleaning up at the box office, preparing to release Fast X—the 10th and (maybe) penultimate installment of the industry’s most improbably franchise. As if being on the verge of having another worldwide smash hit wasn’t enough, Ludacris is now touring with the great Janet Jackson. One more: Hours before Fast X races into theaters on Thursday night, Ludacris will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“That’s ludicrous,” he says with a knowing wink. “Mind-blowing is an understatement, because that's that cliché shit of someone saying, ‘I never would've imagined.’ If somebody would've been like, ‘Hey, man, you're going to do seven more Fast & Furious movies.’ No, that is the epitome of there’s no way in hell. I’m an optimistic person, but I never would have believed that.”

Ludacris—the movie star, not the rapper—was born when another hip-hop A-lister let success get the best of him. After a brief, but memorable appearance in The Fast and the Furious, Ja Rule was offered a starring role in the follow-up, 2 Fast 2 Furious. But director John Singleton was so frustrated by Ja Rule “acting like he was too big to be in the sequel,” that he called up Ludacris, who was on tour with Eminem. “I remember right before getting on stage, I was in my dressing room and someone told me, ‘You have to try out for this part. They only have one day so you've got to put it on tape now.’” Ludacris recalled. “I'm 20 minutes from going on stage. It's that crunch situation of, Am I going to get this part? I don't know. I just got to do this shit.' And I did it. The rest is fucking history."

With the casting change, out was Ja Rule’s Edwin—and in was Ludacris’s Tej. The Vin Diesel-less sequel saw the return of Paul Walker's Brian O’Conner, who relocated to Miami and started dominating the race scene, which was, unofficially, run by local garage owner Tej. Essentially making his acting debut (he cameoed in Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s The Wash), Ludacris admits that, in 2 Fast, he was playing “Ludacris to a degree.” Now, two decades and six Fast movies later, Tej is a tech genius and expert fighter, which, as far as we know, Ludacris isn’t.

“The Ludacris character wasn't too far from the first Tej, but he's grown tremendously,” he says. “In every single film, you're learning more about him, which I absolutely love. I don’t want to stay stagnant—and if my character doesn't continue to evolve, then that makes me question even wanting to be a part of these movies. It's great that they've allowed me to do that, and that's what makes me continue to fall in love with the character."

Back in 2 Fast, the money-making set piece was Brian jumping his car onto a boat. As cool as that was in 2003? Child’s play compared to what the franchise pulls off now. Flying cars! Racing submarines! Tej flyng to space! That's why Ludacris approaches every Fast script wondering how they could possibly top what they last did. When it came to the Louis Leterrier-directed Fast X, Ludacris was surprised that the film saw 2011’s Fast Five through a new lens. Co-written by Fast Five filmmaker Justin Lin, Fast X introduces Jason Momoa as the hilariously psychotic Dante Reyes, a previously unseen character who is seeking revenge for Dom (Diesel) and the family killing Reyes’s father in Fast Five. “It opens up so many possibilities for what could be done with things that we thought we’d already seen,” Ludacris explains. “We keep saying, ‘What else could we possibly do?’ Well, we could literally go back and just show you a different perspective of some shit you've already seen.”

Not only do many fans argue that Fast Five is the greatest Fast, but some (including myself) consider it in the conversation of the greatest action films of all time. “As much as I love it, in my opinion, the jury's still out on Five being the best action film of all-time,” Ludacris admits, before making his own bold claim in relation to Fast’s upcoming grand finale. “I would say Five is definitely the best—up until we get the second part of 10. Because 10 and 11 might have to be joined together, so I can't judge it based on Part One. There's a possibility that Fast X, in its completion, might be the greatest action film of all time.”

That’s a hell of a tease. As far as Fast X goes, Ludacris just wants to add one last comment, concerning he brotherly Fast X fight scene he shares with longtime friend and costar Tyrese Gibson. “There were some scenes taken out where I was whooping his ass some more,” he says of the Tej and Roman bromance turning physical. “I think Tyrese went behind the curtain and told them to take a couple punches out. And you can tell him I said that shit, too!”

In the last 12 years, Ludacris has starred in six Fast & Furious movies, which leaves him with only so much time for other projects. And with a combined box office haul of over $5 billion, Ludacris is Tej to an unfathomably large audience, and that's exactly why he takes roles that are the complete opposite of Tej. There's his supporting turn in the Best Picture-winning Crash and his arc as a manipulative killer on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Those darker performances came early in his acting career. But the current era of Ludacris, the actor, is just like Ludacris, the real guy: A family man.

“It wasn't even strategic,” he says of creating and starring in Netflix’s animated coming-of age-series Karma’s World, as well as leading the upcoming Disney+ holiday comedy Dashing Through the Snow. “When you have four daughters, you have to say to the world, ‘What are you trying to teach me?’ [Laughs.] So I’m like, ‘Let me do something for young girls worldwide,’ and that's how Karma's World came about. Then the next thing you know, I play a father to a beautiful daughter in this Christmas movie for Disney.”

Going forward, Ludacris wants to make two things happen, whether it be sooner or later. The rapper hasn't released an album since 2015's Ludaversal, so he promises me that he’s working on new music. “Let’s just say, in the future—because I’ve said coming soon before and gotten in trouble,” he says. With three Grammys already in his trophy case, Ludacris has his sights set on getting halfway to an EGOT. “I probably have about 40 more years or so to do this, but, at some point, I want to be an Oscar-winning actor,” he shares. “Even if it happens when I'm 75, I'll take it.”

Before Ludacris goes for the gold, he's preparing to say goodbye to the Fast franchise, with 2025’s Fast X Part II currently slated to serve as the eleventh and final film in the main series. While he’s open to the possibility of sticking with Tej for any potential spinoffs, is Ludacris ready for the end of the road?

“Bro, it sunk in for me after 2 Fast 2 Furious,” he admits of thinking he was one-and-done with Fast. “So I'm perfectly fine whenever they choose to say, ‘OK, guys, we've done enough.’ To be in a franchise like this, I feel like one of the luckiest individuals. I have gained a whole other family—you have no idea the love and the education that I've gotten from my peers. Personally and professionally, it is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

For the sake of audiences and actors with laundry needs, here’s to hoping the ride isn’t over quite yet.

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