An angry black man and a jerk-off gym teacher. “21 Jump Street” has its share of fun stereotypes, from both high school movies and buddy-cop films. Rob Riggle and Ice Cube are both aware of the roles. And both had a lot of fun.
“You’ve seen the character a thousand times, so to me to try to make this guy a little more different was taking it too seriously,” Ice Cube told HitFix during our interview. “What I gave is what you wanted out of him.”
“[Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller] had a very clear vision of what they wanted. One of their strengths is that they let us improvise,” Rob Riggle said. “You shoot whats on the page. And we did… and then they would free it up. Then we would play… and a lot of times that stuff made it into the film.”
Cube talked about other projects, like producing, his forthcoming solo album, and his desire to maybe “doing more dramas.”
On the other hand, Riggle tried to explain why funny people like he, Jason Sudeikis and Paul Rudd are all from Overland Park, Kansas (this writer’s hometown).
“It must’ve been something in the water,” he laughed. He actually had an opportunity to discuss their position in comedy at a charity event in Kansas City. Not knowing each other at the time, they all determined the one thing they had in common: “We all went to game six of the World Series in 1985.”
(The Kansas City Royals won.)