Just two months before principal photography was meant to commence in Paris on the latest "Rush Hour" sequel, director Brett Ratner came to screenwriter Jeff Nathanson ("Catch Me If You Can") and informed him that he wanted a part written into the Jackie Chan-Chris Tucker action-comedy franchise for Roman Polanski.
Roman Polanski? The guy who wrote and/or directed "Repulsion," "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown," three of the bleakest assessments of human nature ever put on film ... in "Rush Hour 3"?
What's next? Martin Scorsese playing the heavy in the next "Charlie's Angels" sequel?
"Everyone said, 'Yeah, right -- Roman Polanski's gonna be in 'Rush Hour 3,' " Nathanson recalls. "We kind of ignored it." But Ratner kept pestering him, claiming that Polanski, a friend of the director's, enjoyed the previous films and really wanted to play a part. So Nathanson drew up several potential characters and scenarios until he and Ratner decided that "the role of a very sadistic French police officer would suit him."
The producers and studio executives remained skeptical. " 'It'll never happen,' " Nathanson remembers them saying. "Nobody believes that there will be a day when you're going to walk onto the set and there's gonna be Roman Polanski, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker."
Well, until a few weeks ago, when the 73-year-old Oscar-winning director ("The Pianist"), film icon and famous fugitive showed up on the Paris set one day -- prepared, curious, and ready to dissect every scene and prop.
Polanski has been in front of the lens before, most notably as the jittery, menacing thug in "Chinatown" who taunts Jack Nicholson with "You are a very nosy fellow, kitty cat ... " before picking the actor's nose with a switchblade.
Sounds like just the guy you want to play off the crazy high jinks of Mssrs. Chan and Tucker.
"The way 'Rush Hour' movies are done, you can't take yourself too seriously," says Nathanson, who avoided writing any ironic or self-referential dialogue that would wink at Polanski's storied personal or professional past. "You have to have a sense of humor about it. There's really no other way to approach these things as a writer, because it is what it is. Roman had that attitude, which was to just go for it and not worry so much about where he lands because there's a safety net in being in something that's really just meant for people to go and have a good time."
