There’s no shortage of memorable scenes from the 1999 romantic comedy The Best Man, but if there’s one that stands out among the rest, it’s Jordan Armstrong, played by Nia Long, nearly slapping the hearing out of Taye Diggs‘s character, Harper Stewart, for ruining their chance of finally seizing a romantic moment the night before Lance and Mia’s wedding.
During a 2018 episode of Unsung Hollywood, Diggs revealed the act which proceeded Jordan’s equally infamous line, “I don’t wanna hear ’bout no goddamn peas,” was completely unscripted. But it was during our Of The ESSENCE cover shoot with the cast that Terrance Howard revealed he actually instigated the moment behind the scenes.
“Oh that was my fault,” Howard says casually in conversation with Diggs and Morris Chestnut for our The Best Man Men’s Roundtable. “You and Nia were working and I came over to you guys and I was like, ‘I don’t believe none of that sh-t. Whatever you all are doing, it’s just crazy. You all are not connecting.’”
Diggs, in thinking back on the moment, says he thought Howard was kidding, to which the actor who plays Quentin Spivey in the franchise, admits, “I was dead serious.”
“Nia was like, ‘How f-cking dare you come over and say that. Don’t come and give me notes. Don’t give me no damn notes.’ So I go back and I’m watching, and then the scene happens,” he recalls.
In said scene, Jordan slaps Harper upside the head when he shows up to her apartment bruised and beaten after Lance discovers he slept with his bride-to-be years prior. When Harper tries to blame Jordan for his book, Unfinished Business, ending up in the groom’s hand, the media exec hauls off and slaps him upside the head, retorting, “Maybe if I had the luxury of getting my assed kicked, I could be calm right now.”
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“All I could do was go, ‘Woo!’ Because I though Malcolm was going to cut and he didn’t cut,” says Diggs reflecting on that moment. “I remember thinking, What is going on in this set? It’s so unprofessional. You know what I mean? But it wasn’t until afterwards that I realized that it was a really great moment and it made that scene.”
Check out our full roundtable conversation with the men of The Best Man in the video above.
