Walk of Fame Honoree Kevin Hart is Non-Stop

It’s almost the last day of summer and Kevin Hart is finally off to Hawaii. But if you think that the biggest comedy star in the world is taking a well-deserved vacation to decompress from his hectic work schedule and latest record-breaking stand-up tour, you’d be wrong.

With his aptly-titled “What Now?” tour juggernaut and its stunning statistics — it’s the best-selling comedy tour of all time, grossing over $100 million on five continents and 15 countries, with 1.3 million tickets sold — still in the rear-view mirror, Hart is already hard at work on his next project. That would be Sony’s “Jumanji,” a reboot of the 1995 Robin Williams hit, which is shooting in Honolulu and co-stars Hart’s “Central Intelligence” partner Dwayne Johnson — the pair also exhibited great chemistry co-hosting the MTV Movie Awards. In between Hart is to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Oct. 10.

He’s also juggling “a few other things,” as he puts it, including an upcoming remake of the French dramedy “The Intouchables” with Bryan Cranston, “and Season 5 of ‘Real Husbands of Hollywood,’ and ‘Captain Underpants,’ another animated movie, for Disney,” he says. “And then there’s the launch of my new digital network, Laugh Out Loud, and my fitness projects I’m working on. So yeah, I’m pretty busy — definitely too busy to sit around on the beach.”

2016 has been another spectacularly busy year for Hart, especially at the movies; his first three releases — “Ride Along 2,” “Central Intelligence,” and “The Secret Life of Pets” — grossed $124 million, $216 million, and over $800 million, respectively. “What Now?”, his third feature-length stand-up movie, will be released by Universal on Oct. 14. It’s the follow-up to his 2013 hit “Let Me Explain,” which became the third-highest grossing live stand-up comedy movie of all time with $32 million domestically. Shot in the comedian’s home town of Philadelphia, at the Lincoln Financial Field stadium on Aug. 3, 2015, before a live audience of 53,000 adoring fans, “What Now?” not only broke more records — he became the first comic to sell out an NFL stadium as a solo act — but ups the ante for stand-up films thanks to its ambitious Bond spoof bookends.

“Kevin and I came up with the idea together, and it made total sense as he already does a Bond bit with video clips at the start of his live shows,” says director Tim Story, who’s worked with Hart on two previous concert movies and directed him in several features, including the “Ride Along” franchise. “It was just a matter of choosing which Bond film to do an homage to, and Kevin’s very together about pinpointing what works for him.”

Opening with an expensive-looking Bond-style credit sequence, the movie introduces Hart in the glossy stand-alone prologue as a part-time super-spy whose sexy partner is played by none other than former Bond girl Halle Berry. “That was all Kevin’s idea, and he went after her and pulled it off,” Story says.

Fast cars, beer-martinis (don’t ask), Russian villains, glamorous casinos, and more guest stars, including Don Cheadle, whom Hart proceeds to lavishly insult at every turn, pop up as the frenetic action swiftly propels Hart to that moment when he catapults onto the Philadelphia stage and grabs his golden mic like a rock star greeting his fans. Hart says he specifically added the Bond homage “as a teaser to show the world the direction I’m going in and where I see my career,” hinting that a full-length Bond movie might be a possibility. “I’m just taking baby-steps to get there.”

It’s the sort of moment that Mike Berkowitz, comedy department head and partner at APA, and Hart’s touring agent since 2008, has often dreamed about — and increasingly witnessed in the past few years.

“I was always a fan of his TV and film work,” he says, “and back then he was better known for that than his standup, which was just beginning to sell. We met through a mutual friend, and I fell in love with Kevin the moment we sat down, and knew it’d be a great partnership. Not only is he extremely talented, but he’s shockingly motivated and as determined as any artist I’ve ever met, and he’s also not afraid to think outside the box and put himself out there.”

Berkowitz goes on to single out another quality that has helped drive Hart’s career — his unshakable self-belief. “He’s never been afraid to bet on himself; and not only financially, but in terms of putting himself in situations that many other artists wouldn’t consider,” he notes. As an example, Berkowitz cites the time when Hart appeared on Showtime’s “Shaquille O’Neal Presents: All Star Comedy Jam,” “and stole the show. And within a week of it airing, Kevin’s ticket sales to his own shows were surging, and usually at that point, you’d join a package show like Kings of Comedy, as a special up-and-coming guest alongside the established regulars. But when the offers came in, Kevin turned them down.”

The reasoning? “He said, ‘When I go out, it’s going to be my show, and maybe we’ll play smaller venues and clubs, but it’ll be about me, I’ll be the headliner and I’ll bring my friends to open for me,’” recalls Berkowitz. “And when I began talking to promoters, they were confused and didn’t understand why he didn’t want more money to be with these bigger stars in bigger venues. But Kevin wanted to bet on himself, sell out a 1,000-seater as ‘The Kevin Hart Show,’ so that next time he could do 2,500, then 10,000, 20,000 and then 50,000, which is what happened. He never doubted himself.”

Keeping a Lookout: Hart’s concert film “What Now?” was filmed in front of an audience of more than 53,000 fans and will hit theaters on Oct. 14. Courtesy of Universal Pictures

And Hart never doubted that his latest tour would become his biggest ever. “Each tour evolved, and with this one, we wanted to go out and tour the world and break records, and the best way to do that was to be really ambitious and really push the envelope by doing three shows in some of the arenas, and selling out football stadiums,” say Hart. “These were all challenges, and we sat down and strategized all this, and agreed, ‘Let’s go for it — go hard or go home.’ Ultimately, we knew we were just competing with ourselves.”

Hart and his team self-produced all the shows. “Why not?” he asks. “If you can, just do it. There’s no reason not to. I love to be very hands-on and keep control and bring ideas to the table.”

Coupled with that self-belief and determination, Hart has also been blessed with a laser-like focus, a capacity for hard work, an ability to successfully multi-task, and enough energy to fuel a basketball team — all elements that have combined to make him the No.1 touring comedian in the world. “No. 2 is a very distant second,” Berkowitz says, “and if you look at the top 10 touring comedians, Kevin equals the next five combined in ticket sales.”

Another key to his success is his color-blindness. “Kevin’s never wanted to just be the biggest comedian for African-American audiences,” adds Berkowitz. “He’s always wanted to make sure his material reaches everyone, and his ‘What Now?’ tour did record-breaking numbers because it played to every nationality, religion, ethnicity worldwide — from the Middle East and Africa to Australia and Europe, and playing sold-out stadiums. No one’s ever come close, and I’m not sure anyone will.”

Although Hart’s core audience is largely black, it’s telling that he rarely broaches the thorny issue of race relations in his act. “For me, when you make things controversial — especially in today’s climate with everything that’s going on — it gets very tricky,” he says. “There was a time in stand-up when it was a freedom of speech thing, and you could say stuff and no matter how bad it came out, people would accept it as part of the act. But now it’s a lot more sensitive, and I don’t want to put myself in a position where I’m getting judged or ridiculed for my approach to comedy — or my approach to tricky issues like race, or politics or sexuality. People are so opinionated and these topics can really rub people the wrong way.”

The comedian’s answer is to keep the focus firmly on himself: “on my life, what I see, what I do, ’cos that way there’s no room for error. You can’t get mad at me or judge me for that. But you can laugh.”
Over the years, Hart, now 37, has consistently mined his own life and family background — warts and all — for big laughs. But if you ask him just how dysfunctional his childhood was, he tells a story that is far less extreme than the exaggerated standup version.

“It was just like any other family,” he says. “It wasn’t at a point where it was, ‘Oh My God, someone’s gotta help this kid!’ We had problems like everyone. Dad was in and out of the house, not really there. He was on drugs, my mom wasn’t. She got sick of it and kicked him out, he went to jail, got out and got some help, got rehab, and got his relationship back with the kids and mom.”

What did Hart inherit from his mother, who “held the family together”? “Hard work,” he shoots back. “Mom was over-religious and very strict, but she had to be, because she had two boys, and she wanted to do the best she could, and I love and respect her for everything she did.”

Nancy Hart died of cancer in 2007. And his father? “My personality,” he states. “He’s very outgoing, and he’s got a good heart. And that combination of work and heart made me who I am today.”

As someone who always found the comedy in the pain — tellingly, he titled his 2011 tour “Laugh at My Pain” — Hart naturally gravitated toward standup and turned professional at 22. “I’ve been doing standup since I was 18, and I had some great mentors, like Keith Robinson,” he says. “My idols and influences were all the greats — Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, George Carlin, Steve Martin, Seinfeld, Cosby. You can’t be a comedian without being a student of these guys, and they all did it their way.”

As his career quickly gained momentum in the early 2000s, it looked like Hart would soon join that roll-call of greats, but then he hit a series of low points. A series was picked up and then canceled by ABC, and a starring role in 2004’s “Soul Plane” failed to ignite his movie career when the comedy opened to critical pans and grossed barely $14 million in its entire run. When he auditioned for “Saturday Night Live,” he didn’t make the cut.

But he never let the failures get to him, recalls his manager, Dave Becky. “He just kept at it, just kept working.”

Today Hart views those low points as “educational moments, not failures. Nothing happens overnight, and if a road has no bumps and rocks, you don’t get a story. So those times when I didn’t get jobs that I felt I should have got, when stuff got canceled and my acting career that I thought was going to blossom and be amazing just didn’t move at all — it all helped build character, and built stuff for me to talk about as a comedian. You need experiences, good and bad. I had problems with the government, with my taxes, I went broke, and I was praying to God for just one more chance, and then, if I got that chance, what was I going to do with it? I feel that God put me through a lot in the beginning, to prepare me for what was going to come later, and now I’m really prepared and equipped to deal with everything and everything I want to do.”

Hart, who has two kids from his first marriage, recently married longtime girlfriend Eniko Parrish. “Behind every man is an amazing woman, and I have a great woman,” he says. “She believes in me and motivates me to be a better person. My first marriage didn’t work, and I take full responsibility for that. I wasn’t as mature as I am now, and I wasn’t emotionally able to handle the stuff I can handle now. Now I know how to be married, what I’m supposed to do. I’m just in a much better place now, and I’m excited about the future.”

Ask most comedians about their goals for the coming year, and you’re likely to get something along the lines of, “Another standup tour, a new comedy album, maybe a bit in a movie, maybe a guest shot on a TV show if I have the time.”

Ask Kevin Hart, and it’s a whole different ballgame. “The sky’s the limit for me,” he states earnestly. “I really believe that, and at this point I feel I’m basically competing with myself. By that, I mean that no one can push me harder than I push myself. I set my own bar and I constantly raise that bar to be higher and higher. And when you have that perspective it takes you out of a mindset where you’re always worried about what other people are doing. It’s not you looking at someone else’s success and saying, ‘I could have that too.’ It’s you looking at yourself and seeing what you could do, and getting in a position where you’re doing what you should be doing. That’s where I am, and that’s where I find the most success, by challenging the only person who controls it — and that’s me.”

Related stories

Kevin Hart Talks Social Media, Plans for Production Company Hartbeat

Kevin Hart Aims High with Fitness Goals

Kevin Hart Named World's Highest-Paid Comedian, Amy Schumer Becomes First Woman to Crack List

Get more from Variety and Variety411: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter