The 2023 version of White Men Can’t Jump landed on the Hulu streaming platform on May 19. Charles “Calmatic” Kidd II directed the sports comedy movie starring Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow.
White Men Can’t Jump served as Jack Harlow’s feature film debut. The Louisville-raised rapper took on the lead role after releasing music projects such as Thats What They All Say, Come Home the Kids Miss You, and Jackman.
Calmatic stopped by Hot 97’s Ebro In The Morning radio show to discuss White Men Can’t Jump. The longtime music video director talked about working with Jack Harlow on the Kenya Barris-written motion picture.
“To be honest, we were trying to find our white man. It was just no one out there,” said Calmatic. “It was so many actors that were great but they couldn’t hoop. Some people that could hoop but they couldn’t act.”
The LA-bred filmmaker added, “I think one of Kenya’s interns one day just said like, ‘What about Jack Harlow?’ It was one of those moments where everybody was like, ‘Oh s###, this actually might work.’ So we hit him up. He came in to audition. He killed it.”
Calmatic went on to say Jack Harlow’s basketball audition “wasn’t pretty” but it was “efficient.” Previously, Harlow played for Team Nique at the 2022 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game. When asked if the “Tyler Herro” hitmaker can hoop, Calmatic responded, “Kinda.”
Additionally, Calmatic mentioned that he considered Lil Dicky for White Men Can’t Jump but the Dave actor did not fit the part of Jeremy. Calmatic also suggested Jack Harlow could end up having a Hollywood career similar to fellow rapper-turned-actor Mark Wahlberg, aka Marky Mark.
“I joke around with him like, ‘Bro, he’s gonna be like the next Marky Mark.’ I know as a real rapper he doesn’t want to hear that,” said Calmatic. “I think ten years from now, kids are gonna be like, ‘Yo, Jack Harlow, the actor, not the rapper.’ Or both.”
Jack Harlow’s Jackman dropped on April 28. The 10-track project peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 chart with 35,500 first-week streaming-equivalent album units. It became the rhymer’s first No. 1 on the Top Rap Albums chart.
