Prankster Kevin Hart

In the animated action comedy Captain Underpants, Kevin Hart voices a 9-year-old named George, who with his best friend hypnotises the school principal into believing that he's a superhero. Unsurprisingly, Hart admits that he was a prankster as a child. "I was pretty much always in trouble," he says, "because I didn't want to stop laughing. I loved laughing in school and making other people laugh. And in school that's the worst thing you can do in the class is be the funny guy, because then nobody is focusing. Everybody is passing around letters or pulling chairs from underneath the teacher. Or was that just me?"

Hart likes that the film's focus is on the friendship between George and his buddy Harold (voiced by Thomas Middleditch). "I loved the relationship the characters had," he says. "Because in school, the close friends you have are very important - that friend that you open up to, that you are talking to on a different level on a day-to-day basis. You're confiding at a young age. That's dope to me. I think that's something kids can relate to. I know I could! I had a friend named Kylo when I was coming up and you couldn't separate us. At school, I wasn't in trouble without him and he wasn't in trouble without me."

The film's subtitle is The First Epic Movie, which implies that a sequel is coming. "We would love this to go on," Hart admits. "It's an actor's dream to be a part of any animation franchise that can live on. Everything is set up perfectly, so we're hoping people go out and respond to the movie. The following that the Captain Underpants novels has is huge, so the movie potential could be endless. But it's a business so let's hope people respond and show up at the box office."

Watch the trailer for Captain Underpants First Epic Movie:

In the mean time, Hart has just finished filming on two high-profile upcoming movies. First he'll star opposite Dwayne Johnson in the sequel/reboot Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. And then he'll team up with Bryan Cranston for Untouchable, a remake of the acclaimed 2011 French hit The Intouchables, about an ex-con who becomes a carer for a paraplegic millionaire.

"You want to pick roles that will put you in a place where you can continue to grow," Hart says about this shift to drama. "It's all about challenging yourself. You don't want to do the same thing over and over."

Kevin Hart on the red carpet