“It becomes a running theme when you talk to Chris, it doesn’t matter who you bring up,” Affleck says. “Chris is friends with them and has had some incredibly meaningful personal encounter.”
With a personal connection to the subject and the freedom to shape the part however he saw fit, Tucker got to work crafting what he says was “the hardest role” he’s ever played. “Rush Hour was pretty much me on steroids,” he says. “Friday, I was young. But for Air I had to really embody Howard’s spirit and get his dialect and then his personality. He’s a very friendly person, a positive person. I wanted to really get that across because everybody else in the movie is saying no. And Howard wouldn’t say that. He would be positive about it.”
Tucker took the performance seriously, and wrote all of Howard’s dialog scenes—or at least, dictated them to his son, “because you young guys are better with the computers.”
So the real Howard White let Tucker into his world, and his research was extensive: “Howard had me talking to people he played hopscotch with as a kid, his teacher, his high school coaches, friends, all the way up to him mentoring Charles Barkley. I got a lot of information and put it together to embody his spirit. Everybody I talked to said he’s a glass half full guy. They call him Confucius.”
“I think that he was a unifying force in that movie,” the real Howard White says of Tucker’s performance. “And it’s difficult to see. But it’s always been my mission in life to keep people positive, for MJ, for Nike. I was there to balance those tough moments with: ‘We’ll get through this.’”
So Tucker immersed himself in the part to study up. “Chris came to LA early and locked himself in his hotel for a week,” Affleck recalls. “That’s the only time that’s ever happened in my experience professionally, acting or directing. That’s why he was so fluid—all the ad-libs and throwaway lines are things he knew about Howard and picked up by osmosis. When you commit that kind of time and energy and you’re as brilliant as Chris is, that’s the result. He could just transition right into Howard.”
There’s a pivotal scene in Air—Nike’s big pitch to the Jordan family—where Howard arrives late, and James Jordan senior gives him shit for it: “Only brother in the room, and you late.”
It’s a scene the real Howard White told Tucker about, and White’s mere presence helped seal the deal. “I wanted to give that sense in the scene, that none of that would’ve happened without Howard,” Affleck says. “That Howard was the cultural bridge to Michael and more importantly to his family. Because these white guys didn’t know how to talk to or connect with him in the same way. And they relied on Howard, not just his background as an athlete or his ethnicity—the thing people all say about Howard is he’s just someone everybody likes. He’s witty. He’s charming. He’s the guy who, when you bring in the person you wanna sign, you want Howard there.”
Frazier Tharpe
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