Paula Jai Parker: I’d lived in Washington D.C. when I was going to college and I had seen girls that reminded me of Joi. The blonde dookie braids became popular and, Lord, those nails. I did the nails, I created those and put those on. I don’t know where I got that from. I was just young and inspired.

Patricia Charbonnet: Probably the person who worked the hardest was the script supervisor when it came to lines. John Witherspoon always said his lines one way, then the next day he said them another way, then the next day he said it a different way. It wasn’t always the same, it was free-flowing and fluid. Actors like Chris Tucker were allowed to display their own comedic skills. That’s why the freedom that existed on the set shows up so easy on the film, and it makes people feel like they could be there.

F. Gary Gray: A one-page scene could stretch to two pages after all the ad-libbing. Then you end up having a four-hour movie. I would tell them, “Hey, I want you to improvise, but I want you to be at least conscious of time.”

Patricia Charbonnet: Chris Tucker was like an electrical storm, every single day. He was also a difficult person for the script supervisor. When he went into improv, he was unstoppable, so the pressure was on and stuff had to be rewritten all of the time since there was so much electricity flowing on set. When he would break out into an improvisational piece, or even John Witherspoon, Gary just managed all of those competing energies so well.

Angela Means: Chris wasn’t originally in the “You got knocked the fuck out!” scene. That shows you how on fire Chris was. He just ran in and said, “You got knocked the fuck out!” Every single take that Chris Tucker did you had to hold your laugh, even if it was just a pickup line.

Chris Tucker (via 1994 Interview): You know in the neighborhood when you get in a fight, get beat up, there’s always somebody that comes over. They don’t ask you if you need help. They be like, “Man, God, you got your butt kicked. Man, he knocked you out!” Like you don’t know what happened. You was right there, you were the one that got knocked out, he’s telling you how you got knocked out. So I was just trying to bring that to the screen, man, let people see that this is what goes down in the neighborhood everyday. The good side of South Central, not what they see on the news.

DJ Pooh: They had a trampoline out there and some big heavy cushion bags that stunt guys normally fall on. So they do the [Deebo] punch and I jump back off the thing in the air and land on the bag. I was stoked, like, “I can do my own stunts! I got this!” Then I jumped, missed the corner of that bag, and landed on my tailbone and my elbow. We did that scene about seven, eight times.

Ice Cube: Bernie was always the realest. He always had the best advice. He didn’t talk a lot but when he did it was always potent. He’d say stuff like “You hesitating a lot,” as we’re sitting there trying to figure out what we’re going to shoot next. Bernie was an underused talent. I was so happy when he was down to do it and then he came and got busy.

John Witherspoon: Bernie Mac was hilarious, boy. The reverend, he was funny. And the lady across the street with the big breasts.

Tony Cox: Running across that street wore me out. Gary was like, “Man, I want that energy! I want energy!” Man, my little stump legs were wearing out. I was so glad when that scene was over with. My legs were shaking. I’ve never been through anything like that. That’s the most I’ve ever run in my life. That’s like a whole year of walking for me. I kissed the ground when it was over.

Faizon Love: We were all in honeywagons, which is unheard of now. They’re these little dressing rooms that they normally put actors who are just beginning in. Pooh, me, Chris, Nia, and Angela Means were all on the steps of our honeywagon sharing a joint one day and I was like, “Damn, this would be a dope-ass picture.”

A.J. Johnson: Michael Clarke Duncan was an extra shooting dice. Nobody knew him! Everybody on that set was brand new! Wasn’t nobody really big but Ice Cube.

Anna Maria Horsford: Cube’s mother came on the set and said he always wanted to be in the business since he was a little boy. She was so impressed with me—I was one of black people’s superstars then because Amen was out—but I said, “No, this is all your son.” She looked at him and said, “Do you know who this is?” and he said, “Yeah, ma.” [Laughs.] I was like, “Wait a minute, your son did all of this! This is his movie!”

John Witherspoon: I had my character in my head. I looked at my uncles, my daddy, and all the rest of the people that I know, them old crazy dudes. In the script, they first had that we had eggs and bacon for breakfast. But I told them you gotta say all the chitlins, all the collard greens, all the pigs feet, all the hog balls.

F. Gary Gray: When Witherspoon came in, you knew he was going to give you something brilliant. Even shooting the bathroom sequence, as crass as it was. We put a chewed Snickers bar in the toilet for effect, so when Cube walked in we showed him this fake turd. I’m not much into the toilet humor but it’s low-hanging fruit with Witherspoon. We just put our foot on the gas pedal.

Angela Means: During the scene where Craig says “Bye, Felisha,” Gary was going to break down the set and do a reverse shot of me. I was supposed to walk up to the porch where Chris and Cube were and face the camera when I spoke to them, like everyone else did. I was like, no. If Felisha is going to invade people’s space, then she is going to invade people’s space. She’s oblivious to personal space and boundaries. I told Gary, “Why don’t we just save a whole hour and let Felisha’s ass just sit down in between them?” Neither Cube or Chris knew I was going to sit down, and when I did Chris wasn’t even acting, he was like, “DAMN!” He was pissed at me. [Laughs.] It made the scene better, and broke up the monotony of everyone coming to the porch. Her sitting down was a moment that we found together. Not that it was that big a deal, but it did save like a good hour, and it created that scene, the three sitting on the porch like that.

A.J. Johnson: When Ezal sees Craig and Smokey, I was only supposed to ask for two dollars, but I ad-libbed and made up so much stuff, like jumping on the car and falling in the store. Gary loved it so much he kept it in there. My brother and sister were on crack, so I was just thinking about them and the stuff they did. When you think of them, it’s easier to think of some crackhead stuff.

F. Gary Gray: We had to shoot that store scene fast. We were off the 126th St. campus. Anything off of that block was “off campus,” so we had to deal with the elements. It was an area that was a cross section for a lot of gangs. Cube was a huge star, and with being a huge star in Los Angeles from the streets, comes street politics. To drive down Normandie towards 126th St., past El Segundo and into different neighborhoods, with this camera, car, and lights, we had to have armed security follow us, because we just didn’t know what was gonna happen. We didn’t know what the reaction was going to be. While we had a lot of love in my neighborhood, you just don’t know if that love extended outside of that neighborhood. So when we shot the store scene, we were in another part of town. We had no issues, but it was something we were aware of.

"I heard of people naming their animals and their kids Deebo. There’s so many white people that name their animals and their kids that." —Tiny Lister

A.J. Johnson: When it came to making something up, if I went somewhere, Chris came right there with me. When I called to him, “You behind there taking a shit?” he was like, “Don’t tell nobody.” I was like, “Man, don’t worry about it,” but of course then I told everybody, “Hey, Smokey back there taking a shit!” I wasn’t supposed to do none of that. My father was in the theatre business and he always taught me, when the camera’s on you, make sure you go as big as you can.

F. Gary Gray: I directed my part [at the store]. I’d put a stand-in there, take his place, and when it was done, take a look at the performance and determine how bad it was and then take the lesser of the evils and move on.

John Witherspoon: Gary had to deal with all these comics tryna change the lines and saying, “I wanna say this,” or “I don’t wanna say this.” He was very professional with that. He got everybody comfortable and everybody shot their scenes. They were happy to do them because of Gary and Cube. Everybody wants to be happy with Cube, because Cube is cool.

F. Gary Gray: When you have brilliant people around, you get moments like “Bye, Felisha” and “DAAAAMN!” and all that stuff. You can’t write that. That just comes in the moment out of the electricity of all the artists and their collaboration. I love having my guys improv because it’s natural and authentic. But when you’re dealing with a comedian’s instinct to perform on 10 at every moment, sometimes that interferes with what you have in mind and the rhythm and the pacing in telling the story. Sometimes you’d have to convince a performer to tone it down just to preserve the sequence, to not swing for the fence in this moment because it’s going to negatively affect everything around it. When you’re 24 years old, you’re not quite sure how to articulate that. It can come off a certain way and can be misunderstood.

Tiny Lister: I thought F. Gary Gray was somebody special. He was the new eager director, but he had his ear to the streets. He knew what was going on in the streets, and knew what they wanted. He was from the street we shot on. He came along at the right time, it was another young black director being born.

Angela Means: I remember Gary wrestling with profanity and asking me to tone it down. Then it turned into Chris’ film and he ran with it. Gary wanted to scale the profanity back, because it had become every other word. He was like, “Guys, we’re better than this.”

F. Gary Gray: A lot of times they said I was serious. I was just focused on the scene we were shooting and making sure I was prepared to answer questions. I was making sure people felt like I knew what I was doing. I was a little self-conscious about that, but like anything else it’s a learning experience. You don’t know what you know until you do it. And I had my moments where I laughed with my team.

Faizon Love: Chris was always fucking around with Gary. At that time, Gary looked like one of the members of New Edition, so we would call him “Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, and Mikey, and Gary too.” We would sit in the back of the van just fucking with Gary and he would be like, “Take me seriously! I’m the director!” Like, yeah, right. It was fun because Gary would fire us every day. We were like kids in little league, like Bad News Bears. We were supposed to respect this director, and he was the first one we went after.

Angela Means: When Gary put the “F” in front of his name, we were on the shuttle bus going somewhere and Chris kept saying, “Eff Gary Gray! I said, eff Gary Gray!”

F. Gary Gray: That still happens to this day. That’s one of the ways that they would fuck with me, take the initial and fill in the blank. Tucker just naturally targeted everybody. Everybody was picked on, everybody was fair game. It’s what gets you through those long days. People would bag on each other and Tiny was a big target. The name “Tiny,” as big as he is, and he can only see out of one eye and he’s loud…. But he’s like a teddy bear. He did the bully thing on the set but it was all funny to us. We would all talk about each other and that was just our way to say, “I got love for you, man.” If I talk about you, I’m fucking with you. If I’m quiet, you probably got something to worry about.

Tony Cox: What made it so much fun is that you had all of these comedians. People were going after people. Chris was going after Tiny. I was getting into it with Tiny. Chris was doing the same stuff he would do in the movie, behind Tiny’s head. Tiny was like, “I’ll hurt you!” Chris would say, “How can you hurt me? If I get on that bad eye side, you can’t see nothing. I’ll wrap you up.” We were all out there shooting night scenes, laughing at 2 and 3 in the morning and they were trying to get us to keep the noise down because people were sleeping. But that shit was funny. Everybody was cracking on everybody. That’s the most fun that I’ve ever had. I couldn’t wait to get to work. I’ve never felt like that.

A.J. Johnson: Bernie Mac was the funniest. When those cameras went off Bernie stayed on. Bernie Mac had everybody laughing on that set. Singing, cracking jokes, running around playing with people. If it was time to eat, he’d make up songs about it’s time to eat. He was incredible. Anything he said came out funny.

Faizon Love: It was pretty much a functioning set, just with us idiots working.

F. Gary Gray: I wish the fight sequence was a little better. There are a couple of things I would improve. There are moments where the fight didn’t feel as real as I wanted it to. I’ve always wanted to do action, so that was my moment to shine, and it felt a little staged. They’re lumbering around with garbage cans and bricks and I didn’t get the coverage I wanted to. Then you have the challenge of Tiny coming from the wrestling world and people associating [the fakeness of] wrestling with the scene. I wanted it to turn up. It felt a little slow. I just didn't have enough time.

Anna Maria Horsford: When Deebo pulled out the knife to go after my character’s son, I told Gary she can’t stand there and watch someone try to kill her child and not jump in. That’s your instinct as a mother. Gary came back 10 minutes later and said, “OK, you go for him but let John [Witherspoon] hold you back.” That’s when John says, “Let him be a man, let him be a man,” and I respond, “I don’t care if he’s a man or not, I’m not going to stand here and watch him hurt him.” I was glad that stayed in the film. It’s in the little moments that you have to be so clear in the people you’re portraying because you have a responsibility to the people who are watching.

John Witherspoon: The lesson about not using weapons made it a bit more serious for my character. You put yourself in the same place as the father. You just found a gun on your son. If this neighborhood’s so bad, I’d never have moved here. I told him use fists. You kids are weak, sissified. So use your fists, live to fight another day. That was poignant, and helped the film.

F. Gary Gray: With all my work, as it relates to the streets, there’s the element of how we need to think about our practices and come together. In Friday, I wish there was more of a transition to that message. It seems the movie crashes into that moment. You’re experiencing all these fun moments and then all of a sudden there’s this message. It grounds the movie but the execution is inelegant.

Shawn Barton: Between Ice Cube and Chris Tucker, I had like a hundred pairs of black and blue Converse that I gave away at the end of shooting. I was like the Converse peddler.

F. Gary Gray: All the music in the movie is music Cube and I grew up with. On Saturday, when we had to do our chores, my mom would throw on ’70s soul and it just felt warm. When you grow up poor, all you have is your friends, your family, and music.

Patricia Charbonnet: When Gary dropped the music into the film it was a fantasy soundtrack. You can drop in all the great music that you want to, but if that film is going to be released, someone has to pay for it to be in the film. Toby Emmerich of New Line was such a believer that he put up so much money to allow us to have all of the music in that film. I will never forget that because Gary delivered a film with this music in it, and there was no money whatsoever to buy any of these songs.