Hi, this is Sarah Koenig with News About Our Latest Podcast from Serial Productions and The New York Times. It's called Metro. Well, technically it's called Metro with Sarah Koenig because the show is supposed to be by me, but I prefer the name Metro, so let's just go with Metro. Stories about New York City and its most fascinating raw material. New Yorkers.
Each week on Metro, we bring you investigations. Don't tell them you're gonna go to jail if every talk about this last night. Personal stories. I don't think this is the word dump when you're talking about your death session. Essays and interviews.
Are you a fan of them, Mayor? Yeah. I don't hate them. Stories that take a bigness of New York and make it human scale, and relevant, no matter where you live. See, I consider myself a citizen of everywhere.
So come along with me, you two Jersey, and let's hang out with the best talkers in New York City. Metro, wherever you get your podcasts. We live in a world where either you order shit or you deliver shit, and you really don't want to deliver shit. I'm David Marquesi, and today I'm interviewing Chris Rock. Sellout arenas, it's like sex, I would say.
Unless you played that arena twice, it didn't happen. His comedy specials in the 90s and 2000s not only made him a household name, they were touchstone cultural events, full of brilliant and profane commentary on gender. We're gonna have platonic friends. Race. If you black America's like an uncle that page, I'll wait through college, but molestigue.
And the biggest news stories of the day. What the f*** they're clippin' dude? That was charges him with shit I didn't even know was crime. More recently, Rock has reflected on his own life in his work, including his 2016 divorce, and the unbelievable moment when Will Smith slapped him live on stage at the Oscars. Will Smith played Muhammad Ali in a movie? You think I want to dish him for that part?
The on stand up, Rock has built a successful Hollywood career acting and directing feature films, including 2014's critically acclaimed Top 5. Now, Rock is back with the movie Misty Green, which he both wrote and directed about a struggling actress played by Rosalind Elazar, who gives a star-making performance. Hello! I would like to finish my audition if it's too much trouble. All right.
I wanted to do a movie about Hollywood. I wanted to do a movie about the exploration dates we all have. Here's my conversation with Chris Rock. But first, a quick message. If you're not a subscriber, we have some news for you.
You can now explore the times for free without paywalls during your first month in the New York Times app. Just download the app and we hope you enjoy it. Okay, on to the interview. Ready to go, Chef. Chris, thank you very much.
What do you got for me, man? What do you want? I want to start with a question about the new movie. About the new movie, Misty Green. To me, the movie, it's thematically very rich. There's a lot going on, but one of the themes for me was really status.
Who loses it when it comes to success and money relationships? I wanted to know when do you feel insecure about your status? I've been doing a lot of therapy in the last few years, post-COVID. And a lot of it's about not feeling insecure. A lot of it is about, you're enough.
You are enough, sir. But I don't ever really feel insecure about my status per se. Occasionally, I'll meet people that are obviously working harder than me. And that'll make me feel insecure. Adam Sandler, Rick Rubin, like, what?
What are you doing? How many things are you doing right now? That can make me a little insecure. Some people are better with their kids than me. I think I'm a good dad.
You kept them off the pole. I've kept them off the pole, but they're only fans. No. Sometimes you see a loving relationship, and you get insecure. You haven't been single, and you see a homeless couple.
They got it. One thing that was interesting to me about the movie was that it's a movie that both makes Hollywood feel very appealing because of the talent that you see and the love that people have for doing what they do, and it also makes Hollywood seem awful. Like truly racist, sexist, sort of chips away at your soul constantly. You know what I'm talking about, right? And has your experience of Hollywood sort of inhabited both those spaces?
On the one hand, you're obviously, you've had an incredible career. On the other hand, it seems like very hard not to go through that career kind of unscathed. I mean, you're not going to get how bad Hollywood is soliloquy from me. I always say every generation laughs at their children's racism. So my kids are like, this is a rhythm.
And what I would call racist, my mother would laugh at. Are there bad parts about Hollywood? Yes. But it's still better than a normal job by a lot. Okay? By a ton, man. I wouldn't change it for anything.
I've said before, I used to work at a lobster. I used to work at a home for autistic, severely autistic, mid-adults. I had the night shift and you had to make the food. It was kind of like being a big brother because I'm the oldest of seven. Sometimes you have to change a diaper or whatever of a grown kind of man.
Like, so what if I can't get a sketch on? So what if somebody's not, you know, doesn't respond to my script? I used to wipe people's asses, dude. But the question of compromises comes up throughout the film. This compromises in everything, right?
So what are compromises that you've had to make in your career? I mean, honestly, I came up in cable television. I could kind of say what I want. Life is catching up to... You should have given an old subject, a new jail.
You know what I mean? Like, honestly, there's more... I don't know if I could do bring the pain today. I'd have to compromise. But in 1996, I did pretty much whatever I wanted.
So I haven't had to compromise myself as a stand-up. I've been able to make some weird movies. Dude, I made pooty-tang. You know what I mean? I've got my own things that I've directed and I've got side-props.
I've been very fortunate, Spike Lee, Eddie Murphy, you know, Denzel, all these great people kind of opened up a door. And I've been able to have a really weird, sometimes bad, but definitely like, no one will ever say he didn't try. You know, I did a documentary about hair shows, dude. You know what I mean? So I'm the last guy to complain.
A second ago, you said, you know, I don't know if I'd be able to make bring the pain today. And that's kind of a sentiment that I see a lot. You know, people, comedians, or even just artists saying, yeah, you know, I don't know if I'd be able to make whatever it was they made, you know, 30 years ago today. And I wonder, do you really think that's true? Because I look around at comedy and the culture, I'm like, I think I'm going to make it.
Here's the difference is, you're right. Two things can be true. I'd be able to make it. It would be huge. I mean, I'll even further bring the pain would be bigger today.
You know why it would be bigger today? Because you wouldn't be able to report on it. What do you mean? You wouldn't be able to say it was great. The New York Times wouldn't be able to say it.
It wouldn't be on Netflix. It wouldn't be on any normal thing. So it would be like, like, like the Shane Gillis thing, which would actually elevate it. You know what I mean? Like, I, you know, I'm not here, you know, the New York Times got a weird thing with comedy.
I would go for it. It's just not even with comedy. It's just like, you know, the Times, the, the journal, like, they ignore the nuance. So they like something really could say, you know, it's like, okay, this is a man-a-sphere conservative thing, or this is a really kind of woke-up thing. And all the people in the middle, they kind of ignore.
I remember a couple of years ago, I don't know, five years ago, ten years ago, Bill Burr sold out Madison Square Garden. Yeah. First night he saw it at Madison Square Garden. In the history of Madison Square Garden, it's probably more now. But at that point, I don't know, eight comedians had sold out Madison Square Garden.
You know, and by the way, selling out arenas, it's like sex, I always say. How so? Unless you've done it, unless you played that arena twice, it didn't happen. Okay. You didn't have sex with her twice.
To her, it never happened. So, and that's what playing an arena is, right? Anyway, Bill Burr plays Madison Square Garden. I wake up the next day. I want to read the review.
There's no review. There's no review. Because Bill Burr is this guy that walks a crazy line. Is he conservative? Maybe he's conservative.
Wait a minute. He's got a black wife. Oh, he's sexist. Wait a minute. There's a lot of women here.
Like, you guys only covered it. You're not fucking with that middle. So anyway, bring the pain because it would be actually less lauded would be bigger today. Because it would have some sort of taboo appeal to it. It would have a taboo to it.
Where before when I did it, I got all these accolades. Yeah. But do you think there's something in comedy that happened? I think since Trump got elected the first time where it seems like the comedians, a lot of comedians, you know, infinitely more than about comedy than I do in a battle. But where comedians feel like they have to subtly or overtly signal what their politics are, like sort of wink to the audience so that the audience kind of knows where to put them, even if the place they're putting them is a guy who, you know, can see both sides.
And I feel like audiences are looking for it now in comedians. Maybe. Maybe. I mean, I'm trying to decide if I'm going to go back out now and just like, you know, I wouldn't do it. Do I want to jump in this bed?
I don't know. I'm loving directing. Yeah. Actually, I'm actually like, oh, maybe I should like do a run of pictures. But I don't know.
We used to only talk to the best of the best. We used to only talk to the person singing. We used to not even talk to the producer. Now everybody's got to say something. And, you know, some of it's boring.
A lot of it's boring. Can I just ask now a question about Rosalind Elazar and her performance in Misty Green? Really? I knew her work from Slow Horses. That's where I'd seen her before.
But it's kind of an incredible performance. You realize you can sing amazingly. You've got to wait one night on me. You'll be the only one. Different emotional levels she's able to bring to the character.
But can you talk about what she brought to Misty that wasn't in the script initially? She just brought a humanity to it. I mean, here's what I say when I'm directing. It's my movie. It's your part.
You know what I mean? And it was hers, man. You know what I mean? I met Rosalind about a month ago. I never, but for the months where she was misty, there was only misty.
You know what I mean? So she was misty when she came in on the audition. She was misty through the whole filming process. She never asked me one question that didn't have to do with character. So she's, we will work again.
And there's a scene in the film where her character is not a spoiler at all, but there's a scene in the film where her character is performing a kind of a nightclub. And she just sees an incredible singer also, which is something that you didn't realize up to that point in the movie. And when I saw that I was thinking about how in the performing arts, the amount of just pure talent that's out there, that is not, you know, these people are not necessarily household names. They're just trying to make a living. It's really staggering to think about it.
It's a lot of talent. And do you feel like you understand who makes it and who doesn't? Like talent must have so little to do with it, ultimately. It's not that it has so little to do with it. There's a lot that goes into it.
I mean, right place, right time. Hey, what kind of friend are you? Which goes a long, long way. Like I've, even now, if I look over my career, you know, probably half of my gigs are just somebody going, oh, he's cool. You know what I mean?
Like, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta be a good friend. You have to be considerate. You have to ask people how they're doing. There's all these other parts. I mean, I know myself and a lot of artists were just so fucking self-centered.
So, I don't know, to answer your question, yes, there's a lot of talent out there. And a lot of it's just the right time, right place. And yeah, some of this has no rhyme or reason. I mean, sometimes you're like on a subway and you see a guy playing the fucking violin. Like, you know what I mean?
Like, they should be at the Met or something. You're like, what the fuck? Who's someone who you worked with or who's work you know that you thought was incredibly talented? But whether because like maybe Misty they were self-destructive or they just never got a break. I'd say that.
I wish I could say that off camera. There's a bunch of people, the self-destructive thing. That self-destructive thing is a really sad thing. Or someone who's, who's, what's the best to not? The thing about self-destructive too.
It's like, people don't realize, people go, okay, the year's 365 days, right? And if I want to party, who cares? If I, what I'm trying to say is a self-destructive person is basically a person that makes six bad decisions a year. You know what I mean? It seems like a little, I mean that's 359 days of being fine.
They were doing fine. Of being fine. But those six bad decisions a year will fuck up your whole life. So, you know. How many bad decisions are you doing?
I don't know. I mean, you know, show business, it's like the Olympics. And in the Olympics, the difference between first and last can be less than a second sometimes. You know? Less than a second.
So. I want to ask you about the movie. Another question. Mr. D.
So, 24. Do you think that there were ideas that you had about women or men and women that you had to examine or think through in order to credibly create the character of Misty Green? Because, and I ask because, you know, in a lot of your comedy, you make distinctions between men and women. And you know, and you're, and, but the distinctions, I think, in my reading, they're coming from like the male point of view. And Misty Green is so much about one woman's story.
Was it hard for you or did it take any like excavation to, to be able to do what you wanted to do with the character? I mean, well, those start, you know, saying there's stark differences between men and women is a perfect device for comedy. It doesn't work in a drama. I'll say this. Part of, you know, all this therapy and all this stuff, it's developing an empathy and really being able to get inside of another character.
So, you know, last four or five years, I'm like, I'm a way more empathetic person. Misty, it also helps that my, like my daughters are like grownups kind of. So I've experienced, I really watched women, you know, around my house, their friends, and my daughters just, you know, they don't, they don't forgive my sins, but they give me an education that I wouldn't normally have. I want to go back to directing. You said, you said, you said, you're into directing now and like to do more of it.
It was what 12 years between movies you directed between a take five and Mr. Five. Top five. Top five. I'm sorry.
I've done some of it here. What took so long? What took so long? Life, COVID, I got divorced, which means which meant I had to make like real money. Maybe I had some other scripts that just didn't, you know, the market didn't respond to, you know, it's a lot of stuff.
I did other movies and it's not like I was sitting around for that time, but you know, COVID was like, I don't know, we got a, it's like a time of like, okay, what am I doing with my life? Well, you know, in other shit, I don't feel like talking about it. A lot of, a lot of stuff going on. I'm less 12 years. Did you, did you come up with answers to the, what should I be doing with my life questions?
COVID, I should be directing small movies, character driven pieces. It's kind of, I can do that. Maybe I'm not in the movie as much as I used to, used to be. I've been writing a lot more. She working on a book, working on a book of essays.
We'll see where that goes. But are any of those things that you don't want to talk about? Can we talk about them? I mean, what are you talking about? I mean, I'm a big black and answer stuff, coolly or not answer them, whatever.
What do you want to know, man? Is there more to say about this lap than what you said in the last special? I'm good, man. It was so long ago. Not that long ago.
I wish everyone well. I wish everyone well. I've moved on with my life. Do you forgive what happened? I'm not going to get into clickbait things.
I don't think I'm in beef. There's no, I'm done. I'm done. But I know I keep doing this. Let's go back to the movie again.
There's thematic things in the movie that I think are interesting to dig into. But I was slightly surprised to hear you say that you don't really have anything that bad to say about Hollywood, given the content of the film, which to me was really about on one level just how hard and hurtful to an artist's soul Hollywood can be. But what for you were the main ideas and themes that you were interested in exploring in Misty Green? I mean, I'm really into exploration dates. I have a lot of friends who are in their fifties or whatever.
And there's this thing everybody tells you you can do art forever. You know what I mean? And that's just not true. And a lot of show business has like you got to reach certain plateaus by a certain time or else you're going to be in trouble. So yeah, Misty is turning 40 and it's a little bit of an exploration date happening here.
But yeah, I wanted to do a movie about Hollywood. I wanted to do a movie about the exploration dates we all have. I wanted to do a movie about LA. And it is like this tale of two cities. It is sunshine and palm trees, but we're constantly walking over homeless people.
You know what I mean? Like the most liberal people in the world. This place that the fact that Rodale Drive and Skid Row are in the same city, probably eight, ten miles apart. So in a lot of ways, America's like that. Very rich, very poor.
It's like we live in a world where either you order shit or you deliver shit and you really don't want to deliver shit. What should our response to that disparity be? Like when you experience the inequality disparity that you're describing, like what do you think you should act differently or do something about it? So the running title of the book I'm writing right now, it's called When the Homeless Know Your Name. Because when the homeless know your name, it's a whole nother like you feel that shit, dude.
You mean because you're famous? Because you're famous, but they know your fucking name, dude. So somebody asks you for money on the street, they just ask you for money. When they ask me, they say, yo, Chris. So that shit, you know, I don't know what I should do.
First of all, who the hell carries cash anymore for the most part, right? You know, you give when you can. You give to this charity, that charity, what you can. I want to dig into that feeling a little bit more. When the homeless know your name, hey, Chris, what do you do with that feeling?
What does it make you feel? I mean, there's like, I'm usually up now, I get up around seven. I'm out of my, I'm literally getting coffee about 7.15. I go to my supermarket, get some fruit, right? And inevitably, there's always like a bunch of guys packing, like setting up for the day.
I mean, I don't know, obviously like 12 years of slave or any slave movie with a free slave. And the slaves look at the, you know, at Chiwetel. And he's like, and he's dressed all cool. And he's got his hat and just looking at him like, how the fuck did this happen? We're the same.
That's me at the supermarket in the morning. They're looking at me. They're not even looking at me as a famous person. It's like, who's this brother buying mango at fucking 725 in the morning? Cause, you know, if you're in solo, if you're in, you know, just no black dudes living down there.
Um, I don't even know what I'm doing. I answer your question. Yeah, you're, you're, you're behind the veil. Yeah. And it's like, yeah.
And they're looking at me. I'm looking at them because I know I could be that. I know if I don't walk in a comedy club in 84 or 83, I probably have a normal job. I'm not, you know, I probably have a normal job. Do you, do you have a lovely life, by the way?
I don't, I'm not one of these guys that's like, if I didn't find comedy, I'd be in jail. No. I'd work for Amazon or something and I'd have a wife and some kids and I'd be okay. It's interesting that you're writing this book because I remember probably I was probably, I think it was pre pandemic, maybe right before the pandemic. There was an announcement that you were working on a book about interracial relationships and you even, I think on Facebook or maybe how to website, we were asking people to send stories and what has what happened there?
You know what? That book never showed up. I'm not, I'm not trying to be like a gangster or anything. I didn't like there was just me and the publisher and cause when you're writing some about race, especially in this era of everybody taking everything out of context, I just didn't feel like everything I was saying to the publisher, I was getting, you know, they were listening to everything I said and I was like, I don't, I don't, I don't trust these people I'm working with. I gave the money back.
Oh, really? Yeah. How much was that that you gave? It was significant. So more than I'm making today.
Yeah. More than making for this interview. I'll make a check out later. The, the, um, do you think that taking things out of context is like an ongoing problem for, or having things taken out of context is an ongoing problem for artists and, and comedians now because it feels like there's so much discussion about, you know, whether somebody said something offensive or who's allowed to make what, what joke and, and, uh, I just feel like I never know how, how real that is. It's, I mean, I hate to say it's just bullshit.
It's like, it's just nerd bullies. It's like, you know, easy it is to go. What, what did you mean by that? It's so easy to go. What did you mean by that before you elect to be angry at something?
It is so easy to ask somebody, Hey man, could you not say that thing? I mean, I just felt a certain way when you said that. And then if you're ignored, yes, reply with anger, but it is so easy to pause and just go, Hey, what did you mean? But it's so easy. So I don't know who else have an argument with the people like, oh, people are so sensitive.
I'm like, not a not sensitive. They're mean and they can't stop being mean. They can't, oh, this is my opportunity to be mean. So you think it's all about meanness? I'm just saying meanness is, is the new kale.
It is on the platter. Okay. It's like, oh, do you got a mean here? I think it's going to make me want to make me real quick. Nothing's going to make meanness seem less cool than comparing it to the new kale.
It's the new kale, man. Like, yeah, it's so easy to go. Okay. What, what, I'm sorry. What did you say?
It's so easy to like, the fuck I'm no genius. I like, like, what did, what did that take? When is offense justified? I mean, people are entitled to their feelings. Don't get me wrong.
I mean, we're all entitled to our feelings. We're all entitled to be offended. Don't get me wrong. So don't, you know, take me out of contact. Context doesn't matter, though.
But people, a lot of people are ignoring context because it prevents them from being mean. This morning when you came in, you said, I don't think I've been here since I filmed in top five, there's a scene in the time center. You said with the, with the canceled All-Stars, Scott Rudin and Charlie Rose. And Charlie, yeah. And I listened to a podcast interview you did with David Spain and Dana Carvey, I think earlier this year.
And you use the phrase that canceled All-Stars in that Carvey Spain interview to talk about, I think Louis CK and maybe Kanye, all people that you're, okay. But how do you, like, how do you think about the question of, like, this actually relates to the movie in a way too, but the questions of forgiveness and who gets forgiven and why? Public figures I'm talking about. Public figures. Hey, man, I'm black.
What does that mean? When you're black, white people believe every accusation is a conviction. I grew up 619 to K-D Street, which is Howard and Sarah Toga. If you go on your phone and punch up Roger Logan, exonerated a guy named Roger Logan, who I grew up with, who was very, he was one of my best friends, brothers, went to jail for 19 years for a murder he didn't commit. And here's the weird thing.
Yeah. His brother used to plead with me to pay for a lawyer for Roger. And I never did it. I always had like a no lawyer thing, because the lawyers like an open-end did thing. Like I'll pay your mortgage, whatever.
There's a bunch of shit I paid for, education, all sorts of shit. I always stay out of lawyers because it's so open-ended. And I'm still fucked with me. I was like, I had the means to help him and I didn't. And I don't know if we could have got him out or not, but still.
So all that to say is I'm black. Black men get accused of shit. They didn't do all the time, every day in the paper. We let black men out of jail out. We go whoops, who that black guy just did 30 years, too bad.
So I don't know. To answer your question, when there's a convict, like all this rumors shit, I'm not, hey, I hopefully I don't get accused of anything. But you know what I mean? Like I'm handling it from a real place. This shit's real when people get accused of things.
And you better be real sure they did it. Am I making sense? You're making sense. You know, I think you're describing a kind of lived empathy that you know. And I'll never be further.
My grandfather, Alan Rock. He killed him in. You can look this up. I don't know if it's, you know, maybe Amsterdam News or something. I don't, you know, legend has it.
He thought the guy was sleeping with my grandmother. The guy lived next door. He told the guy, if you take another step in my yard, I'm going to shoot you. The guy took one step and my grandfather blew him away, right? My grandfather went to jail and my grandfather was a preacher.
And he gets out of jail. I don't know if he gets out of jail on a Wednesday by Friday, he was picking us up from school. And within a year or two years, he was the reverend of that church again. So A, if you're accused of- Wait, he was the reverend when he shot the guy? Yeah.
Whoa. So my brother shot a guy, my brother Charles, his government name is Charles, but he's a 5% of his name is Shabazz. So I say that all to say, my grandfather went to jail. He got out of jail. He did his time.
So A, if you're going to accuse somebody, make sure they did it. And B, when people do things, there's a fucking time limit in the real world. Not in the, I'm a spoiled motherfucker and I went to private school. And yeah, in your world, you just shun people. But in the real world, we kind of have to live with each other.
So yeah, all that to say, it's up to the victims to forgive, I guess. And two things can be true. Like my brother shot a guy, right? I love my brother. Do I think that just because I love my brother, does that mean I think the person should have gotten shot?
No. The last thing I'll say, when I was a kid, you know, two, three times I was in a police lineups. You know, Howard Avenue, stay away from Howard Avenue, right? Howard indicator, right? And you're what your friends mean, Darren Vaz, whatever, right?
In Bed-Stuy. In Bed-Stuy. And you're minding your business and you get swooped up. And now you're in a police lineup. And you've seen enough fucking cop movies to know that behind that window is probably a person, probably a woman, could be a man, but probably a woman, right?
And if they point at you, your whole life's over. Now here's what's fucked up. And you guys, you guys are like the media. You're supposed to be in charge of the nuance of it all. Okay, I'm Chris.
Chris has been on the snoop for fucking four hours. Chris didn't rob this woman, right? If she points at me, she's wrong. She's not lying. What do you mean?
She's not lying. You didn't do anything. She's traumatized. And when you're traumatized, you try to wrap shit up. You know, and for whatever reason, I grew up, you know, my dad drove a newspaper truck and I'd been reading the paper since I was a kid.
The news has taken all nuance out of everything's black and white. Everything's black and white, man. What you were talking about just now with your family story, that it seemed like that was really coming from a lot of personal empathy, but how did you, it's two questions. One, how does one consciously learn to be more empathetic and then he's being more empathetic, good for a comedian? I guess it has to be a better be or I'm in trouble.
Yeah. I don't know if I've learned to be empathetic. I got a friend of mine told me I had Asperger's a few years back and I got it checked out. It wasn't Asperger's, it was a thing called NBLD, nonverbal learning disorder. So, you know, it requires its own level of therapy.
How does, what are the effects of that? The effects are I'm really bad with reading nonverbal signals. Most communication is nonverbal. I catastrophize. I have black and white thinking.
Most things that are great for being a comedian. I was going to say, yeah. But bad and personal life and real relationships. So, I've been learning, like I see a woman once a week and go for my week and, well, you know what, Misty Green would be the first piece of art that I've done since my diagnosis, my first real piece of art. But wait, you said earlier part of what you're talking about in therapy is feeling like you're enough. Like when do you, do you have like self-esteem questions or?
And then all artists have self-esteem questions. You know, all, especially the good ones. I hope maybe I'm good. Knock on steel. You know, most artists are, what is it?
It's an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. Yes, and I would absolutely fall into that. I am great. I hope they notice. You know what I mean?
Like, so yeah, I can feel that way. But so, you know that I think also, any Murphy makes me feel like, well, of course, still in the presence of Eddie Murphy, I can get a little like insecure. Yeah. I mean, you know, I, he was on the show about maybe two years ago. And just even in his stillest moments, just the charisma and the like comedic ingenuity that just flows from that guy, it's like, yeah, there's a reason he's Eddie Murphy.
Yeah. Also, you know, not to name drop. Like one of my biggest regrets in life is I could never relax around Prince. And he kind of wanted to be friends, you know what I mean? Like, like all of me and whatever and hanging out.
I couldn't not be like, oh shit. Prince is drinking his tea. You know, what's he normal with you? Did you feel like you ever got to a place where he's just being a guy? I think it was normal.
I think it was, yeah, it was really normal. I mean, it was a normal rock star, you know what I mean? Like that those degrees of normal are so different than your, you know what I mean? There's a, there's a great Prince story in a, it's in Banos. I think it's in Banos memoir where he says he's in some club and like Prince comes in and you know, makes his exit by like walking across the tables out of the club.
But out of the corner of Banos, he could see that some of Prince's handlers were like holding the bottom of the table to make sure that he wasn't going to fall. So maintain the illusion. I think Tain de illusion. I remember, I might have told the story before, I'm at Prince's house, I'm in Minneapolis. I'd just done some shows.
He had a party for me after at Paisley Park and it's like, whatever. He's playing and he's, I'm literally in the vault. Okay. The vault is like a vault was as big as this room, right? And he's playing me new music and there's lots of people there, lots of people, men and women, whatever, right?
And his wife called. I think he's married to Mai Tai at the time. And he was like, everybody, everybody, be quiet. Be quiet. I gotta make that call.
I guess he called her. He's like, be quiet. So it's like, whatever, 100 people, 200 people. Mai Tai called. It's him picking up the phone.
Hey, nothing. No, I'm just chilling. Hey, I probably go to bed a couple hours. Like it did. And then the party started, right?
Then it was like, again, off, you know, just like right away. Even Prince has to be. Even Prince had the check in. Do you think about what you want the rest of your career to look like? Because I know you said that you want to track more films, but you know, you also talked about the idea of, you know, like an expiration date.
You know, and I really think it's hard for comedians. It can be hard for comedians to get older. It can be definitely hard for comedians to get older. It's hard for them to stay as edgy in the same way as they're thinking. When it stays edgy, you become the establishment.
You just, you know, it comes early in your career. It's your performance. It's whatever you're doing. But it's also the promise of who you are. So the public's like investing in this thing, like the stock.
But later on, you know, you're like LeBron, you're like, it's all like, it's all results. And we'll give you a one year deal as long as you play like LeBron, you know what I mean? Like, so right now I got a deal with the audience where it's like, if it's good, we'll see it, Chris. I don't know. I mean, I've seen careers people change and I mean, Steve Martin's the king of like, reinvention.
I just, you know, hearing you mentioned Steve Martin. Again, spurs an idea for me about maybe changes in comedy, or if you listen to Steve Martin album or you watch old footage of him. Because of the style of comedy he's doing, which is so sort of absurdist and whimsical, you're never asking yourself, does he really believe that? But now I think there's really, it's almost like a litmus test where audiences are asking whether they're saying it explicitly or not. Like, does the comedian really believe what they're saying?
Do you have, when you're on stage telling jokes about about real life things, about, you know, things in the news or cultural things, are we supposed to understand that you believe what you're saying or you're just saying what you need to say to make the bit work? I mean, like where is there a distinction there that matters? I mean, jokes tend to work better when there's some truth in them. You know, when they, you know, when you're not just making up stuff, I think the audience can tell who's fake. Yeah.
You know, I just, they can tell, you know, they can tell if you're married, they can tell if you're a kid, they can tell if you worked, they can tell you can't fake anything. The thing about comedians, there's no mystique. You are who you are. You know what I mean? There's no, there's no Ziggy Stardust of comedians.
You know what I mean? Like, you just kind of are who you are. So, you know, I think, you know, they're rolling with you or not. Do you think you are who you are in your film work? What does mystique say about me?
Sometimes I am what I am in my film work. I think mystique is a good barometer of me right now. Like anything I write, I'm mystique. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like every character in the movie I've been on some level.
Hopefully not the Adam Driver character. Like I broke your, broke yours prostitutes for Saudi Princess. There's nothing different between the Adam Driver character in my movie and the Jack Lemon character in the apartment. It's just an outfit in some hairstyle. Yeah, and the drugs.
Like Jack, what the fuck? Alcohol is the biggest drug in the world. What are you talking about? See, you are leaving out your nuance. It's true.
You literally are making my point in front of me. You conveniently made yourself stupid to make a point. Well, I never conveniently made myself stupid. I just have five fucking cameras here. You just did it.
Also, I'm willing to. You just did it. You're so much smarter than that. If people are like, oh, David left out the nuance of what, I'll draw Jack Lemon was using the apartment. And her too, that Jack Lemon was basically the same character.
And you have this fucking love for the apartment, which is deserved. Just one of the best movies ever. But that's what he was. He was a fucking pimp. Yeah, yeah.
I guess you're right. I don't know where to go for that. So fucking Jack Lemon is a pimp, a PIMP in the apartment. He's a lovable pimp. He's a charming pimp.
But a pimp nonetheless. Pimp nonetheless. In so many ways, we all are. Orhose. Mostly hose.
You're taking all the time to talk to me today. Call me in three weeks. Hey, is this the one where you do a follow up? Yeah, if that's OK. Yeah, yeah, OK.
I'll play by the rules. Starting now. OK. Thank you very much. Thank you.
On the interview, we talked our guest twice. So a couple weeks later, I spoke with Rock again. And he shared his thoughts on the so-called Woke 1.0 era. I'm Redjong. I cover climate and the environment for the New York Times.
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Can you tell me a little bit about those films in particular? How they helped you shape your vision for your movie? I mean, there's a great line in husbands and wives. What do you want to film? What do you mean?
He's playing a professor. He's playing a writing professor. And he's the line. It's something to do with, you can't teach people to write. All you can do is expose them to great writing and help they pick up on it.
You know? And it's just kind of the same thing with film. You know? You can't teach a person really to make a good movie. You just got to show him some good movies and hope that they run with it.
All of those movies, especially the Fosse stuff. You know? Like, I mean, I said cabaret and Misty Green is like, what's the last movie? What's their name? Sally Bowles.
Yeah, there's a lot of Sally Bowles in that, Rooden, tell me to watch cabaret. But also, there's a lot of Lenny in Misty Green. Bob Fosse is Lenny Bruce biopic. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's Dustin Hoffman.
Yeah, Dustin Hoffman, like, there's a lot of Lenny in Misty Green. You know? All I can say is I love those movies. And, you know, if you love them enough, you know, if they feed, my mother would always say, if you feed a kid long enough, he starts to look like you, you know? If you love movies hard enough, you'll eventually make that kind of movie.
You know what I mean? Wait, it's also a direct star 80. Oh, yeah. It's a lot star 80. It's a variety.
Yeah, that also has some, like I said, it has about an L.A. Hollywood movie. Star 80? Yes, I'm forgetting star 80. Yeah, it's a lot of star, how could I forget star 80?
It's so star 80. So, yeah, the Fosse stuff, more than anything, I would say, has been an influence. There's a line in the movie that I wanted to ask you about, which is sort of just a, it's almost an offhand in the film, but it's actually kind of a heavy line where, I think it's the character that you play in the film says to Misty True Love starts with forgiveness. Yes. Is that your experience of forgiveness?
Well, okay. I think, yeah, you know, it's pretty sweet. You don't really realize if you love somebody until you have to forgive them. I can enjoy myself with just about anybody. You know?
I really can't. You know? I absolutely 1000% can. It's like, you want to go see Bruno Mars? It's hard to have a bad time if you're a decent person.
It's when somebody tests you, when somebody betrays you, when somebody lets you down, and you still want to be around them. And maybe you see, maybe you see what they were being faced with. That's now, you know, and if you elect to proceed, now that's love. I have a friend that's going to be nameless, that, you know, might have gotten canceled or whatever, right? And another friend of mine, it's like, well, how can you be friends with that person?
And I was like, well, if you're only friends with your friends when they're good, they're not your friends. You know? If you got a bunch of people that are only going to be there when you're good, you have no friends. Okay? And that doesn't mean, you know, condoning, you know, abusive behavior, because you can reprimand your friends.
You can go up to 20 of friends and go, hey, motherfucker, what are you doing? That's also part of friendship. So, um... But we all have a line, right? Just...
We all, I mean, you and I live in different worlds, dude. I got friends that are in jail. I got friends that are drugged out. I don't live like you. You don't know that.
I can tell, I can totally tell. I mean, you happen to be right. But... By the way, I'm not being dismissive of you. I'm just saying, you know, I've had to, you know, I've had to, you know, my friends have tested me more than yours.
And maybe I've tested them. Who knows, you know? But, you know, I don't know, I'm not religious, but I'm a Christian. And God forgives. That's what it's all about.
The problem with, you know, quote unquote, wokeness, and don't get me wrong, it is great that marginalized people have a voice. It is great to advocate for anybody that feels marginalized. This is great. But the problem with wokeness is we're in the Old Testament right now. Okay?
And the Old Testament has no forgiveness. The Old Testament didn't work, so they had to write a remix called the New Testament. There's been this discussion lately about how the Woke 1.0 era, which I think refers to sort of the immediate post George Floyd era, was, you know, crazy, people say, you know, woke 1.0 was crazy, and like, you know, AOC distancing herself from that, and other democratic politicians doing the same thing. And I just wonder, do you see that moment in time is just, like, that was just a crazy moment in time? Or was there anything redeeming about it?
I think I just answered it, you know. Again, it's great to help those that need help. That is an amazing, you know, we need more of that. The problem is when you institutionalize it, you know, that's the problem, you know, so my half a joke. The Salem witch hunts, I'm sure, you know, the first three witches they caught were actually fucking witches.
But then you opened up a witch office, and now you got to start lying. Now you got to fucking make shit up, because you got overhead. You have to justify paying the hunters. Yeah, you got to justify the witch hunter's fucking pensions and shit. So yeah, man, it's all good.
I'm glad. I'm glad that all of this stuff happened. It needed to happen. You know, and because it happened, maybe I've heard some voices that I probably wouldn't have heard otherwise. Let me switch gears and ask a comedy question, if that's okay.
Sure. Before you go back, I keep saying how bad my friends are. I have some amazing friends too. I have some genius friends. I have some of the most problematic, most most progressive, most some of the greatest artists that have ever lived, some that you know of and don't are my friends.
All right. On the record. Some of the records. Chris rocks friends. Perfect, fine people.
Just unperfectly fine people. All right. So one thing I always wanted to ask a great comedian is, do you think you understand what the purpose of laughter is? Like why do we laugh at stuff? Why do we need comedy?
I never thought about it that hard. Here's what I do know. Yeah. The greatest feelings in life are sex and laughter. And we break up with people that we have great sex with all the time.
We don't break up with anybody that makes us laugh. Okay. We try to figure that shit out if somebody makes us laugh. And the ability to laugh at oneself is probably the highest form of intelligence. And the inability to laugh at oneself is a sure sign you're dealing with an idiot.
Chris, what? Just either professionally or personally. Like what keeps you up at night right now? What do you mean? Like what do you go to bed worrying about?
I don't worry about anything. I don't worry about everything. Everyone worries about something. I'm not worried about nothing, dude. I worry about my kids that they're you know, you know, your kids, especially my oldest doesn't live with me.
So I worry about my kids, but the world, the world is the world, dude. The world is exactly what it wants to be. It's sad where it's sad. It's happy where it's happy. But this is what people want.
Wait, what do you mean this is what people want? This is what people want. People have the America they want, you know, if they want to change it, we'll see. Do you like it? It's the America you want.
No, it's, you know, I've been here a while. I had a long sample size, you know. Martin Luther King was shot in 1968. Black people pretty much live where Black people lived in 1968, especially in New York City. You know, maybe a neighborhood or two is gentrified.
That was it. Maybe Beyonce has more points on her deal than Aretha Franklin. But that is for the most part, you know, the real real real real real change. You know, people are nicer. People, you know, blatant disrespect in the streets doesn't happen like it did in 1968.
But you know, the distribution of wealth, the access to education, the access to healthcare is pretty much where it was when Dr. King got shot. And I could say that about other places in the world too. And let me try and ask the hopefully more. You know, and somehow I got out of it.
Yeah. But, you know, Louis Armstrong was the most famous singer in the world in the 30s and 40s. So Black entertainers have always, you know, kind of gotten off the Titanic before everybody else. And let me try and end with what would, what is intended to be sort of a more hopeful ending to flip side to the what he's. Hey, Mr. Green October 9th is sexy movie.
Let me ask the question. It's a flip side. 24. Those guys are great. No oppression there.
Wait, let me ask the question. You know, I just asked like sort of what keeps you up at night? What gets you up in the morning? What are you most excited about? You know, it's weird.
I'm excited every morning. It's my favorite time of the day. It's my favorite time to get up and take my walk and get my fruit and, you know, listen to the news a little bit. You know, because every day can be great. You never know what's going to happen.
Even when you know what's going to happen, you don't know what's going to happen. So I wake up pretty happy, man. I wake up pretty optimistic on most days. And I'm very fortunate. I'm not going to sit here and act like my experience is everybody's.
I really appreciate you taking all the time to speak with me, Chris. And I enjoyed it a lot. So I especially enjoyed it when you push back at me. So thank you for that. Oh man, this is that's always where the good stuff is.
I'll leave you on this like a friend of mine and I hope I didn't tell you this. A friend of mine called me up. She was working on her special and she said I've had a hard time writing material. And I said, well, you have this podcast. And then what I need you to do is go to your podcast in every hard episode.
That's where the material is. Everyone you thought was a hard time. That's where the good shit is. So if I've given you a hard time, this is the good shit. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Take it easy. Thank you. That's Chris Rock. His new movie, Misty Green, will be in theaters on October 9th.
To watch this interview and many others, subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash at symbol the interview podcast. This conversation was produced by Paolo Newdorf. It was edited by Alison Benedict, mixing by Sophia Landman. Original music by Dan Powell, Rowan Nemesto, and Mary and Lozano. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Seth Kelly, JoBill Munoz, Wine Orm, Jeremy Rocklin, Gabby Cutrares, and Catalina Bryan.
Our executive producer is Alison Benedict. I'm David Marquesi and this is the interview from The New York Times.