Chris Rock Is Solid
Chris Rock, 32, plays a pivotal role in Lethal Weapon 4, which was No. 1 at the box office over the weekend.
CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen asked Rock if he felt nervous about working with such established stars as Mel Gibson and Danny Glover "I took the job because there wouldn't be any pressure," says Rock. "I figured, if it's good, great. If it's bad, people would go, 'Well, why did they do that? What was Mel thinking?' Not much pressure. Just pressure to live up to the expectations I set on myself."
Rock has been honing his comedic talents for 15 years, but it was his stand-up special, Bring The Pain, that first brought the 32-year-old's brand of raw humor to mainstream America. HBO has just signed Rock to a three-year exclusive deal.
The New York Times has called him "probably the funniest and smartest comedian working today."
Rock's reaction: "I don't know if it's smart, per se. It's just me. It's important to me to talk about things that are interesting. So even when you're not laughing, you're not bored."
As child growing up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., Rock had two idols: Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard and comedian Eddie Murphy, with whom he later appeared in Beverly Hills Cop II and Boomerang. He also read a lot of newspapers, partly because his father was a truckdriver for the New York Daily News.
Although the comedian's delivery often sounds spontaneous, Rock says he does not rely on off-the-cuff humor.
"To me, ad-libbing is like you're really lazy, and you didn't look at the script until you got to the set and go, 'Hey! This sucks'," he told McEwen. "Well, it sucked an hour ago. It sucked yesterday. You should have been writing. So, I'm a writer, and I rewrite. I make sure it's in my voice."
Rock attracts fans of all races with his humor. "There's a weird fear in this country," he says. "There's a whole thing that, if white people like something black, then black people must not like it."
The comedian says that, in his routines, he tries "to be on the side of right and wrong, and funny and unfunny. And, hopefully, what I'm saying is right. That's what I'm down with."
Of walking the line in his comedic commentary on the black community, Rock says, "I don't even look at it as a negative or positive. I look at it as: I'm telling jokes."
In 1993, he wrote, created, starred in, and produced the rap comedy CB4 for Universal Pictures. The satire, which spoofed the world of hardcore rap, opened in first place at the box office.
Rock's other credits include Panther, directed by Mario Van Peebles, about the lives of the '60s activist group the Black Panthers; New Jack City with Wesley Snipes, marking Rock's dramatic debut (he portrayed a desperate crack addict); and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! with Keenen Ivory Wayans. He also as written a book titled Rock This.
What's next for Rock? He's putting together a humor magazine to be based at Howard University, as well as preparing his next cable-TV special and a talk show.
And, sometime early next year, he hopes to take his comedy act on the road.