Kevin Hart on Leaked Sony Emails: 'I Don't Fault People, I Don't Judge People'

Kevin Polowy
·Senior Correspondent, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated

It wasn’t just The Interview that caused Sony its most stressful month in movie-studio history: Before hackers threatened violence against movie theaters playing the Seth Rogen-James Franco North Korea comedy, they leaked several emails from Sony’s executives and producers, full of showbiz mud-slinging, off-color jokes, and behind-the-scenes brouhahas.

Among the bold-faced names who were inadvertently caught up in the hack was The Wedding Ringer star Kevin Hart, whom one Sony Screen Gems executive called a “whore” in an email exchange among company executives (the remark was apparently in response to one of Hart’s reps requesting more money in order for Hart to promote one of his films on his personal social media accounts). For Sony and Hart, the timing of the emails couldn’t have been worse: The Wedding Ringer, which opens Jan 16, is distributed by Screen Gems.

Hart elaborated yesterday on the awkward turn of events during an interview for Yahoo Movies’ Things We’ve Always Wondered series (the full clip will be available Monday). Asked by a Facebook fan if he’ll ever work with Sony again, the actor left the door open for future collaborations: “I am in the entertainment business, and in the entertainment business you have to understand that this business can take you for a loop, throw you for a turn,” he said. “I’m all about progression. If projects are thrown my way that I feel like can propel me to another level… then those are projects that I will take.”

"I don’t fault people, I don’t judge people. At the end of the day, if you go through my emails, you’re going to see a lot of stuff that you shouldn’t see."

The funnyman, never lacking in candor, finished by offering some commentary on his own commentary: “What you guys just witnessed is what I like to call a politically correct answer. That’s the brilliance of me, you can’t ever back me into a corner.”

Hart even suggested he receive a “Yahoo trophy” for the answer. There are currently no such thing as The Yahoo Awards (don’t tell Hart), but if we do create them, we’ll keep this in consideration for a nomination in “Best Interview Response.”