“We prepared for that day for a while,” the comedian told PEOPLE

Kevin Hart is getting emotional as he looks back on his daughter’s college move-in process.

Speaking to PEOPLE for the My Life in Pictures series ahead of his latest film Borderland, the comedian, 44, opened up about his experience moving his eldest child, 19-year-old daughter Heaven, into her college dorm for her first semester of school in August 2023.

In the photo shown to the comedian, Hart, his wife Eniko, 39, and sons Hendrix, 16, and Kenzo, 6, frown as they surround Heaven on her bare dorm room bed. Holding the printed image, Hart tells PEOPLE, “This is my daughter’s first day, so we’re moving her into her college dorm.”

“We came here to basically help her move in,” the dad of four continues, “but the room was like, I mean, this is the room. On the other side, there’s a bed there, and that was her half,” he says referring to the picture. “So I was like, ‘I guess we’re done here.’”

“Move-in didn’t even last that long. We were all just hanging out for a bit,” he adds of the tight-knit family.

Glancing back down at the photo, Hart gives a behind-the-scenes look at how it came about. “We’re making sad faces to show her how much we’re gonna miss her,” he shares. “We told her to ‘be cool’ in the middle, so this is my daughter’s impression of ‘cool’ while we suffer with the idea of losing her in the house.”

The actor begins to get emotional about the milestone, calling it, “A very proud moment, a proud day, for me as a father.”

“She’s not far,” Hart says of Heaven’s school. “Luckily!” he adds, knocking on wood. “I got lucky.”

The proud dad goes on to share that he and Eniko “prepared for that day for a while” as hardworking parents.

“All you can do is do your job as a parent, and when they leave, hope that those things that you try to teach have applied in some way, some shape, some form,” he explains. “If they have, you’ll be fine.”

“If they haven’t,” Hart continues, “then you figure out better ways to communicate and try and solve — but we prepared for that day for a while.”

The comedian shares his older children, daughter Heaven and son Hendrix with his ex-wife, Torrei Hart. After divorcing Torrei in 2011, Hart married Eniko and they went on to welcome son Kenzo and daughter Kaori, 3.

Hart’s new film Borderland premieres in theaters on Friday, August 9.