Kevin Hart has spoken of the importance of “falling in love with life” just months after being seriously injured in a car crash.
The comedian, who will next be seen in a sequel to the 2017 film Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle, was a passenger in a vintage muscle car when the driver lost control, sped down an embankment and slammed into a tree near Malibu in September.
The 40-year-old suffered major back injuries in the crash and had to have intense physical therapy at his home.
Discussing the process of getting older, he told the PA news agency: “You embrace it, you have got to fall in love with life in general.
“We all understand that life is a constant progression, it doesn’t stop, it’s going to continue to go forward, so it’s up to you to embrace the obstacles that may be presented to you and just try to become better on a day-to-day basis.
“Getting older is something that should be celebrated.”
Dwayne Johnson, 47, his co-star in Jumanji: The Next Level, said: “It’s a gift, getting old is a gift and sometimes we forget that.
“As Kevin said, time just goes on and it’s not going to stop so I think you can either embrace it or not embrace it.”
He joked: “So you’re looking at two guys, we just embrace our youth because we are so young.”
Johnson also promised that he would never make a movie “for him” and would instead always prioritise his fanbase.
He said: “You’re looking at two guys who truly feel that audiences come first because when you look at the stuff that we do, whether it’s in TV or film or whatever it is that we do, ultimately if you strip it all away, it always comes down to the audience.
“It comes down to the fans, the consumers, the customers, and we do want to make sure that we are creating a great experience for them.
“In our movies and in anything we are putting out there in any kind of content, with Kevin and I you won’t find content or films where people go ‘Aah, you did that for you, that one was for you. The other five were for us. But that one was for you.’
“No, that is our therapy time, we will go see our therapist, we will work on our shit on our own, that is not for the audience. so anything that we do is always audience first.”
Hart continued: “You’re looking at two entertainers that really understand the importance and value in having a fan, because both of our backgrounds, wrestling for DJ (Dwayne Johnson) and stand-up comedy for me, we have dealt with live entertainment for so long, we have always had that personal connection to our fanbase.
“And now we are finding ways to maintain that personal connection through the box office side of entertainment and if we ever lose sight of that, I think we lose sight of where we have come from and what gives us the opportunity to do what we do at the highest level.”
Jumanji: The Next Level is released in UK cinemas on December 11.
