Chris Rock Has Been Thinking About Forgiveness

The Daily

In this episode of The Interview, host David Marchese sits down with comedian and filmmaker Chris Rock to discuss his new movie Misty Green, his career evolution, and his reflections on fame, friendship,

Key takeaways

• Rock discusses Misty Green, a film about a 40-year-old aspiring actress played by Rosalind Eleazar, using it to explore Hollywood's 'expiration dates' and systemic inequalities.
• He credits therapy for helping him manage insecurity when comparing his work ethic to highly productive figures like Adam Sandler and Rick Rubin.

Main topics

• Filmmaking and Hollywood realities
• Therapy, empathy, and personal growth

Notable quotes

"Selling out arenas, it's like sex, I always say. Unless you played that arena twice, it didn't happen."

Conclusion

Rock's candid reflections provide a grounded look at aging in Hollywood, the balance between

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) The New York Times app? Unlocked? Everyone knows you need to subscribe to the Times to access all of their reporting. But what if you could explore the Times for a month, for free, without putting in a credit card? Now you can. When you download the New York Times app for the first time, your first month in the app is free. A month to go behind the paywall, to see what Times subscribers get every single day. If you don't already subscribe to the New York Times, Download the Times app today and get free access for 30 days. Speaker 4 (0:30) We live in a world where either you order shit or you deliver shit. And you really don't want to deliver shit. Speaker 1 (0:41) I'm David Marchese, and today I'm interviewing Chris Rock. Speaker 4 (0:45) Selling out arenas, it's like sex, I always say. Unless you played that arena twice, it didn't happen. Speaker 1 (0:52) 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, Women Speaker 4 (1:02) get to have platonic friends. Speaker 1 (1:03) race, If Speaker 4 (1:04) you black, America's like the uncle that paid your way through college but molested you. Speaker 1 (1:10) And the biggest news stories of the day. Speaker 4 (1:13) What the f*** did Clinton do? They was charging him with s*** I didn't even know was crime. Speaker 1 (1:18) 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. Speaker 4 (1:29) Will Smith played Muhammad Ali in a movie. You think I auditioned for that part? Speaker 1 (1:35) Beyond 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 Eleazar who gives a star-making performance. Speaker 2 (1:54) I would like to finish my audition if it isn't too much trouble. All right? Speaker 4 (1:58) I wanted to do a movie about Hollywood. I wanted to do a movie about the expiration dates we all Speaker 1 (2:04) 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. Speaker 1 (2:23) Ready to go? Should we go? Chris, thank you very much. What Speaker 4 (2:25) do you Speaker 1 (2:25) got Speaker 4 (2:25) for me, man? Speaker 1 (2:27) What do you want? So I want to start with a question about the new movie, Misty Green. About the new movie, Misty Green. Misty Green, which, you know, 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. You know, who has it, who loses it when it comes to success, money, relationships. And I wanted to know, when do you feel? insecure about your status. When do I, I mean, I've Speaker 4 (2:56) been doing a lot of therapy the last few years, like post-COVID. And a lot of it's about not feeling insecure. A lot of it is about you're enough. Speaker 1 (3:10) You are enough, sir. Speaker 4 (3:15) 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, you're like, what? What are you doing? How many things are you doing right now? Speaker 4 (3:39) So 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 on OnlyFans. No. Sometimes you see a loving relationship and you get insecure. You ever been single and you see a homeless couple and you're like... Speaker 1 (4:09) They got it. One thing that was interesting to me about the movie was that, you know, it's a movie that both makes Hollywood feel very appealing because of, you know, the talent that you see and the love that people have for doing what they do, but also makes Hollywood seem awful. Like, truly, truly racist, sexist. you know, 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 where on the one hand, you're, you're obviously have had an incredible career. On the other hand, it seems like very hard not to kind of go through that career kind of unscathed. Speaker 4 (4:57) 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. Speaker 4 (5:14) So my kids are like, this is racist. And what I would call racist, my mother would laugh at. You know what I mean? 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 Red Lobster. I used to work at a... I used to work at a home for autistic, severely autistic mid-adults. I had like the night shift and you had to like make the food. It was kind of like being a big brother because I'm like the oldest of seven. Sometimes you have to change a diaper or whatever of a grown kind of man. Speaker 4 (6:09) 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, Speaker 1 (6:20) dude. Speaker 4 (6:21) But Speaker 1 (6:21) the question of compromises comes up throughout the film. There's compromises in everything. Right. So what are compromises that you've had to make in your career? Speaker 4 (6:31) I mean, honestly, I came up in cable television. I could kind of say what I want. Speaker 3 (6:39) Life is catching up to jail. Shit, if you live in a whole project, a new jail ain't that bad. Speaker 4 (6:46) You know what I mean? Speaker 4 (6:48) Honestly, I don't know if I could do Bring the Pain today. I'd have to compromise. But in 96... Speaker 4 (6:59) I did pretty much whatever I wanted. So I haven't had to compromise myself as a stand-up. Speaker 4 (7:07) I've been able to make some weird movies. Dude, I made Pootie Tang. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I got my own things that I've directed and I got side. 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 Speaker 4 (7:38) 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? Like, so I'm the last guy to complain. A Speaker 1 (7:53) 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, I don't know if I'd be able to make whatever it was they made 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, it seems pretty coarse. Speaker 4 (8:18) I'd be able Speaker 1 (8:18) to make it. Speaker 4 (8:19) Here's the difference. The difference is, you're right. Two things can be true. I'd be able to make it. It would be huge. As a matter of fact, you know what? I'll go even further. Bring the Pain would be bigger today. Speaker 1 (8:32) There you go. You flip-flopped Speaker 4 (8:34) it. Speaker 1 (8:34) You Speaker 4 (8:34) know why it Speaker 1 (8:34) would Speaker 4 (8:34) be bigger today? Because you wouldn't be able to report on it. What Speaker 1 (8:39) do you mean? Speaker 4 (8:39) 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 the Shane Gillis thing, which would actually elevate it. You know what I mean? Like, I... Speaker 4 (9:01) You know, I'm not here, you know, the New York Times. New York Times got a weird thing with comedy. Go for it. Not even with comedy. It's just like, I mean, you know, the Times, the Journal, like they ignore the nuance. So they like something really, you know, it's like. okay, this is a manosphere conservative thing, or this is a really kind of wokey-woke thing. And all the people in the middle, they kind of ignore. I remember a couple years ago, I don't know, five years ago, ten years ago, Bill Burr sold out Madison Square Garden. Yeah. First night he sold out 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? If you didn't have sex with her twice, to her, it never happened. And that's what playing in 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 Speaker 1 (11:03) it would have some sort of taboo appeal to it. It would have a Speaker 4 (11:05) taboo to it. Yeah. Where before, when I did it, I got all these accolades. Speaker 1 (11:10) Yeah. But don't 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 about comedy than I do. Oh, no. 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. Guy who can see both sides. And I feel like audiences are looking for it now and comedians are giving it to them. Speaker 4 (11:45) Maybe. I mean, I'm trying to decide if I'm going to go back out now. I'm just like, do I want to jump in this bed? I don't know. I'm loving directing, actually. I'm actually like, oh, maybe I should do a run of pictures. Speaker 4 (12:06) 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. Speaker 1 (12:24) Can I just ask now a question about Rosalind Eleazar and her performance in Misty Green? Really, you know, I knew her work from Slow Horses. That's where I'd seen her before. But kind of a... incredible performance. You realize she can sing amazingly. Speaker 2 (12:42) One night You'll be the Speaker 1 (12:49) the 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? Speaker 4 (12:59) She Speaker 1 (12:59) just Speaker 4 (12:59) 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. She, you know what? Put it this way. I met Rosalind about a month ago. I never, but... For the months we're shooting 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. Speaker 1 (13:40) And there's a scene in the film where her character, this is not a spoiler at all, but there's a scene in the film where her character is performing at kind of a nightclub. And she just is 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's a lot of talent. Speaker 4 (14:15) It's Speaker 1 (14:15) a Speaker 4 (14:15) lot of talent. Speaker 1 (14:16) And do you feel like you understand? Speaker 1 (14:20) Who makes it and who doesn't? Like, talent must have so little to do with it, ultimately. Speaker 4 (14:24) It's not Speaker 1 (14:25) that it has so little to do with it. Speaker 4 (14:28) I mean, 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, 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 got to 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 right time, right place. And, yeah, some of this has no rhyme or reason. I mean, sometimes you're, like, on the 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? Speaker 1 (15:32) Who's someone who you worked with or whose work you know that you thought was incredibly talented, but whether because like maybe Misty, they were self-destructive or they just