Happy in ‘Rush Hour’ Traffic

In Los Angeles, everybody loves a winner. Just ask Brett Ratner. When he breezes into Chaya Brasserie, he’s ushered to the best table in the house, the one everyone has to walk past to get to their seats.

At 28, he’s Hollywood’s wunderkind of the moment, director of “Rush Hour,” the surprise-hit action comedy starring Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan that has already topped $120 million, putting it on track to be New Line Cinema’s biggest hit ever.

The pudgy, hyper-energetic Ratner, an artful schmoozer in the venerable Sammy Glick tradition, is enjoying every minute of his stay in box-office heaven. Wearing an untucked button-down shirt that’s at least a size too snug, perhaps from all the power lunches he’s been having lately, Ratner can barely scoop up a forkful of pasta without being interrupted by a stream of studio executives, agents and managers, all bearing glad tidings.

“When you’ve got a hit, everyone is grabbing at you, pulling you over to their table,” says Ratner, who hustled his way into New York University Film School at age 16, was directing hip-hop videos before he was 21, and made his feature debut with “Money Talks,” the 1997 action-comedy hit starring Tucker and Charlie Sheen.

“But don’t worry, I don’t believe all these people who keep telling me I’m so hot. I looked at the Hollywood Reporter the other day, which had a list of the most bankable directors, and guess what? I wasn’t even on it.”

So much has been happening so fast that it’s hard for Ratner to say when he was first swept into the eye of the hurricane. Maybe it was his meeting with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who summoned Ratner after seeing “Rush Hour,” saying, “You must come to my house. I want you to do ‘True Lies 2.’ ”

Maybe it was a leisurely afternoon with Warren Beatty, who wooed Ratner with “these incredible stories” of Beatty’s illustrious career. Or maybe it was getting congratulatory calls from DreamWorks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg and director Jonathan Demme, whose work Ratner loves: “I didn’t let him say anything. I just told him how I steal shots from all his movies.”

But it would be hard to top his recent night out at the Carousel Ball, a black-tie charity gala, which had Ratner rubbing elbows with a ballroom full of moguls and stars. After surveying the room, Ratner decided, “I was the brokest person there by far--everyone else was a millionaire, at least.” Seated at a table with Jenny McCarthy and Lakers star Kobe Bryant, he was greeted by Paramount chief Jonathan Dolgen, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, record producer Quincy Jones and pop mogul Clive Davis.

“[Warner Films Chairman] Terry Semel told me how much he liked the movie,” Ratner recalls. “He said, ‘Enjoy all this, just don’t lose your mind.’ ”

Easier said than done. Nearly every day some agent phones Ratner, who is represented by William Morris’ Gaby Morgeman, “subtly checking to see if I’m happy.” He should be: His new asking price is $5 million. One day a call came from International Creative Management chief Jeff Berg, who told Ratner he’d seen his movie at Beatty’s house.

“He told me his client Jim Brooks [“As Good as It Gets”] had loved it, so he got me together with Brooks, who’s one of my idols,” explains Ratner, his knees pumping so hard under the table that his pasta plate shimmies with an earthquake-like rattle. “So Jim Brooks is asking me questions about how I did this and that in my film and I’m going, ‘Wait a minute, you’re Jim Brooks--I want to ask you a few questions.’ ”

Ratner is so hot he’s even landed an acting gig, playing--what else?--a hot young director in a James Toback film now shooting in New York. It stars Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Brooke Shields and the Wu-Tang Clan, the hip-hop group Ratner once spent $1.2 million making a video for. Asked to describe the script, Ratner laughed. “There is no script! I told Toback I wasn’t an actor and he said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re gonna improvise the whole thing. You’re going to play a director in a movie. We’ll make it up as we go along.’ ”

If Ratner’s head is spinning, he’s not letting on. He says that even as a child he had visions of calling out “Action!” on a Hollywood set. Born in Miami Beach--”I was bar mitzvahed at the Eden Roc”--Ratner was raised by his mother, a socialite who’d gone from being a drug abuser to a drug counselor by the time Ratner was a child.

One of her close friends was R&B; producer Nile Rodgers. When Ratner was 10, Rodgers bought him a movie camera. When “Miami Vice” began filming, Ratner would cajole his mother to drop him off at the set so he could watch Michael Mann make the show. On weekends, Ratner and his friends would shoot mock “Vice” episodes.

At 16, Ratner went for an interview at NYU Film School. His grades were terrible, his SATs were worse. His interviewer told him to go home. Instead, he talked his way into the dean’s office and delivered an impassioned plea: “I told him, ‘This is the only school I applied to, and if you don’t let me in, I’ll end up living on my mother’s couch for the rest of my life.’ ”

A week later, he was in. A year later, Ratner hooked up with music impresario Russell Simmons, who introduced him to the cream of New York hip-hop society. At school he met Rebecca Gayheart, a model and actress who’s been his girlfriend for the last 11 years, a status recently upgraded to fiancee. Ratner put her in all his student films, and in a Heavy D video.

In his final year of school, Ratner made “Whatever Happened to Mason Reese?” The film was never completed--the star, child actor Reese, broke a leg during filming--but it got Ratner a job directing his first video, Public Enemy’s “Louder Than a Bomb.”

Ratner sent out “Mason Reese,” with a plea for funds to finish the movie, to the 40 biggest people he could think of in Hollywood. He got 39 rejections--and a check from Steven Spielberg, which Ratner showed to every woman he met for months before blowing up a copy of it and hanging it on his wall. Three years later, Quincy Jones took him to a cozy dinner in the Hamptons where he met Robert De Niro, Penny Marshall and--voila--Spielberg himself.

Ratner grabbed a seat next to Spielberg, who, clearly not remembering him, said, “So, Brett, did you go to film school?” A lesser man would’ve been crushed, but Ratner took a deep breath and said: “Funny you should ask. . . .”

It’s no wonder Ratner holds the celebrated director in special awe--Spielberg was his age when he made “Jaws,” the film that made him an overnight sensation. Spielberg handled stardom well, but it’s been a struggle for other young lions.

Quentin Tarantino and Michael Bay have chafed in the media spotlight; Steven Soderbergh and John Singleton both stumbled badly after being nominated for best original screenplay with their first films. “Apt Pupil,” Bryan Singer’s recent follow-up to his much-praised “Usual Suspects,” was a flop.

If Ratner is feeling the pressure, he’s too much of a super-salesman to show it. Right now, his favorite project seems to be “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie,” Nick Cassavetes’ update of his father John’s 1976 film, which is set up at New Line and could star Beatty. Ratner’s Schwarzenegger project, which could co-star Tucker, is still in the talking stages, also at New Line.

Another possibility is a comedy geared for Tucker and Chris Rock that is at 20th Century Fox. Ratner has also agreed to direct a “Rush Hour” sequel if it materializes. He’s been pitched a remake of “The Bellboy,” the 1960 Jerry Lewis comedy, as a vehicle for Jackie Chan.

“I even got offered the ‘Charlie’s Angels’ movie,” he says. “They threw a lot of money at me, but the script never worked.”

Ratner prefers directing old-school talent like Beatty. The highlight of his week is having Sunday brunch at the Friar’s Club, where he can mingle with comedy icons like Milton Berle and Alan King. “There’ll be plenty of time for me to work with Matt Damon. Right now, I’d love to do for Warren what Quentin Tarantino did for John Travolta--get him back on top.”

Amazingly enough, there’s at least one job Ratner can’t get. He’s been lobbying producer Armyan Bernstein, who has a romantic comedy script originally intended for Nicolas Cage that stalled when the actor dropped out. “I can’t believe that Army won’t hire me--he wants to get a star attached first,” Ratner groans as he polishes off a bowl of melon chunks and chocolate ice cream. “It’s this wonderful story and I’m begging him for the job, and he still won’t hire me!”

It is hard to believe anyone can resist Ratner, especially now that he has a hit movie to go with his schmoozemanship. He frequently travels to colleges where he gives motivational pep talks. This week he’s speaking to a class at Harvard, and staying with Washington literary power couple Richard Goodwin and Doris Kearns Goodwin; Ratner is clearly unfamiliar with their work, but he’s still impressed, since they’re influential enough to be close friends with Beatty.

“I tell kids that if you have 90% talent and 10% drive, you’ll never be as successful as someone with 90% drive and 10% talent. You have to create your own opportunities. When I go into a meeting, I spill my guts. I get everybody so excited, all they can think about is making the movie.”