Welcome to TV Guide's 12 Days of Chris-Mas, a festive celebration of famous dudes named Chris. Every day leading up to Dec. 25, we will honor a single Chris, counting down to the best Chris of the year. Today, that honor goes to Ludacris, the seventh best Chris.
As a child predominantly raised by MTV, I became aware of Ludacris' theatrical talents before his film career took off. The Atlanta rapper's dedication to the lost art of cinematic music videos was well documented by the network, and for good reason. Just take a look at him with an enormous head in the 2001 music video for "Rollout (My Business)":
Ludacris, "Rollout (My Business)"
The Island Def Jam Music GroupAnd in 2003's "Stand Up," he's wearing a giant sneaker, which presumably contains a giant foot:
Get a load of his comically massive arms in the Spike Jonze-directed video for "Get Back" in 2005:
Ludacris, "Get Back"
The Island Def Jam Music GroupSee, it's funny because his body doesn't normally look like that.
Because of all this goodwill Ludacris had built up, I was naturally on board when, in the mid-2000s, Ludacris signed on for feature films like 2 Fast 2 Furiousand Crash. I mean, how can you not cast the guy who wrote "Move Bitch" to star in movies largely about car accidents waiting to happen?
Still, it wasn't until 2011 that Ludacris officially earned my adoration for life; he was the highlight of the critically panned romantic comedy No Strings Attachedstarring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher. There were no high-speed chases or disproportionate appendages this time, just Christopher Bridges being a goddamn thespian. Playing the role of Kutcher's best bro Wallace, Ludacris churned out sexual one-liners like "Boo! Here comes my dick." Said by anyone else, I would've probably rolled my eyes, but it was Ludacris, the man I grew up loving during episodes of Making the Video. So I laughed. Hard.
12 Days of Chris-Mas, Explained
MTV clearly knew what it was doing when it chose Ludacris as the host for itsFear Factor revival in 2017. Would you willingly watch people lie down in a bed of cockroaches? How about watching someone eat a 100-year-old egg for money? Doesn't sound too appealing, right? Unless you throw a beloved person like Ludacris into the mix to guide you through the horror. Only then does watching people who are probably so deep in student loan debt that they're willing to let scorpions cover their bodies seem like a funny, lighthearted show.
I know I'm not alone in saying I would watch Ludacris in anything, whether it's another Furious movie, an Oscar-winning film or a music video where he has really big thumbs. But since Netflix apparently turns nothing down these days, here's a free idea: a documentary about how he constantly buys strangers groceries just to be nice. I would watch the hell out of that.
