Shaquille O’Neal has a very strong case for being one of the most well-rounded athletes of all time. He excelled both on and off the court. Music, business, and sports aside, Shaq also tried his hand at acting. Yet, he was never confident in that and had a block in his mind telling him he could not do it.
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Shaq has starred in popular movies like Kazaam and has made guest appearances in Grown Ups 2 and Uncle Drew. However, his acting debut came in Blue Chips, and Shaq had a hilarious story about how he ended up acting in the sports drama. He revealed that before Blue Chips, Chris Rock had approached him to be a part of CB4, a comedy movie. Shaq was hesitant about it because he wasn’t sure how his acting chops would translate on the big screen.
Nothing came of that offer, but when the production of Blue Chips began, Shaq was once again hesitant. This time, however, he was prepared. In typical Hollywood fashion, he said, “Talk to my agent.” He shared this story with Dax Shepard, much to his and the Armchair Expert crew’s amusement.
“You know I don’t know the stuff, so I said, ‘Talk to my agent,’ cos you know that’s the thing they say in Hollywood,” he joked. “My agent’s like, ‘Bro, this is a real movie.’ As a youngster, you dreamed about it, but I wasn’t going to LA chasing that.”
You’d think that was the end of it, with Shaq seemingly reluctant to commit to a larger role in a big-time production. Then, things changed when he heard what he was going to be paid. “I said, ‘I’m not a movie star.’ (They said) 3 million. (I said) I’ll do it. I just had to play a basketball player, I think I can get away with that,” he laughed.
Blue Chips also introduced Shaq to his first-ever running mate, Penny Hardaway, who also starred in the film. Shaq was so impressed by what he saw from Hardaway that he decided he had to get him to the Orlando Magic.
“This motherf***er is diming me up like crazy. 6’7″, motherf***er’s smooth and…I’m spinning, he’s throwing the lobs,” Shaq recalled. He immediately asked the Magic to make sure they get Penny in the 1993 draft, while the whole organization wanted to go for Chris Webber, who they ended up drafting. Luckily for Shaq, they traded to the Warriors for Penny.
Unfortunately for Shaq, the success of Blue Chips didn’t really open up a path in Hollywood. He did go on to have multiple cameos and guest roles as a comedic character, but the one movie that he led was not as well-received.
As he revealed later, he never wanted to do Kazam, but the money was just too good to turn down. He claimed that Paul Michael Glaser, who directed the film, approached him with the idea after a dream his son had.
“He comes one day, and says, ‘Hey, my son had a dream about you being a genie, let’s do a movie.’ I was like, ‘Nah, can’t do it.’ Then he come back. ‘Hey, I got you 2 million.’ ‘Nah, can’t do it.’ ‘I got you 5 million.’ ‘Can’t do it.’ ‘Got you 7 million.’ ‘When do you want me to start?'” he joked on the BUILD Series YouTube channel.
The first sign that the movie was going to be a flop should’ve been the fact that it was shot in 30 days, but Shaq was happy. He had his $7 million, and he was thriving professionally too. Who cares if the movie flopped, right?
