KING OF HEARTS
Special thanks to the Corinthia Hotel, London, and the Grenadier Guards
If your lifestyle exhibits even a smidgen of torpor or apathy, you might consider the business of being Kevin Hart to be — as Captain Blackadder put it — a fate worse than a fate worse than death. It’s not that Hart constantly has work (though he does); it is that he is always working. He may be the human representation of perpetual motion, a body with the fierce energy and build of a track and field athlete and the mind of a sage philosopher, always pushing the boundaries of his self-worth and how he might one day improve his lot. Which is a bit of a surprise given his success both in terms of screen time and financial success: according to Forbes, his earnings were around $57 million in 2018, a figure no doubt buoyed by his Irresponsible tour, which sold more than a million tickets and is currently on Netflix (a must-see for all parents).
“When you realise you’re the man who is left out and the low man on the totem pole, it makes you shape up fast.”
Kevin is a professional. At first greeting you might experience some short-term puzzlement, as you expect his on-screen Tigger-like gregariousness to be ever-present. What emerges instead is his polite but unassuming character, which is perhaps consumed by the 50 different objectives in his mind at once. When you are someone who has, in quite a short space of time (he only really made his major breakthrough in 2014), injected a gaudy, audacious and unbearably funny persona into the comic sphere, one that holds its own against the wit of Will Ferrell and the awe-inspiring charisma of The Rock, you will have people all over the world who have been affected positively by it and dream of seeing it up close. What has to be borne in mind is that Hart’s career pushes the boundaries of generic movie stardom. It incorporates a colossal social media following, a health-and-wellbeing venture, two production companies, and a family he is extremely proud
