He Will Rock You!
With his first ever UK tour looming, outrageous American comedian Chris Rock talks to Network News about... well, pretty much everything!
CHRIS ROCK was making fun his profession by his late teens. He grew up in New York and started performing on the stand-up comedy circuit there. One night, while on stage at the New York Comedy Strip, Rock was introduced to veteran comedian Eddie Murphy. Murphy was impressed and cast Rock in ‘Beverly Hills Cop II’.
The part was not a moment of immediate fame for Rock, but his connection with Eddie Murphy landed him some supporting roles. Eventually he worked his way on to the cast of NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ where he stayed for three years.
In a break from comedy, Rock played a rather innocent crack addict and police informant in ‘New Jack City’, directed by Mario Van Peebles. Rock’s performance was well received and showed a more thoughtful, politically concerned character behind the funny man.
Though he remains a comic, Rock’s scripts confront the tensions and politics of modern American society, especially among the African-American communities. Rock’s big success came with the caustic TV special ‘Bring on the Pain’, for which he won two Emmy awards and gained a large fan base. In 1998 Rock got his own show on HBO, ‘The Chris Rock Show’.
The comic became popular with film casters in the late 90’s, acting in a clutch of films opposite big names such as Mel Gibson and Antony Hopkins. His career as an actor and scriptwriter continues upwards. He is currently on tour in the UK. For full dates see www.mcintyre-ents.com/pmesite/live.htm
Chris rock on:-
The World
“You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn’t want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named ‘Bush’, ‘Dick’, and ‘Colon.’ Need I say more?”
On work
“Right now, my job is that I’m like an ambulance chaser. I’ve got to look for movies with white guys falling out of them.”
On Fame
“Yeah, I love being famous. It’s almost like being white, y’know? People are nice to ya, they give you the beneift o’ the doubt... You drive a flash car down the freeway and the cops’ll pull y’over and before they even look they like ‘What the f**k are you doing?’ and then they see it’s you and they like ‘Awww man, it’s Chris Rock, it’s okay, man we thought you was a nigga’.”
On Pimps
“Everyone has favorite criminals. Mine are pimps. We can all rob a bank; we can all sell drugs. Being a pimp is a whole other thing.”
On Guns
“Never go to clubs with metal detectors. Sure it feels safe inside. But what about all those niggas waiting outside with guns? They know you ain’t got one.”
On Sports
“Black people dominate sports in the United States. 20% of the population and 90% of the final four. We own this shit. Basketball, baseball, football, golf, tennis, and as soon as they make a heated hockey rink we’ll take that shit too.”
On Women
If a woman tells you she’s twenty and looks sixteen, she’s twelve. If she tells you she’s twenty-six and looks twenty-six, she’s damn near forty.
On Race
“You probably think I shouldn’t use the N-word, but that rule is just for white folks. Any black person can say ‘nigger’ and get away with it. It’s true. It’s like calling your kid an idiot. Only you can call your kid that. Someone else calls your kid an idiot, there’s a fight.”
“Black people don’t hate Jews. Black people hate white people. We don’t have time to dice white people up into little groups. I hate everybody.”
On the USA
“I love America. America is the greatest country in the whole world. We are all lucky to be here - even black people. If you are black, America is like your uncle who puts you through college but molests you.”
On Relationships
“They’re getting too hard to maintain. You know why? Because it’s hard to keep up the lie. You can’t get nobody being you. You got to lie to get somebody. When you meet someone for the first time you are not meeting them, you are meeting their representative.”
“Who are the biggest liars - men or women? Men lie the most. Men lie all the time. We lie so much it’s damn near a language. But women tell the biggest lies.”
“Only married people understand you can be miserable and happy at the same time. When you talk to your single friends and you tell them what’s going on in your marriage, they say, ‘Well, leave her’, and you say, ‘Are you crazy?’”
On Homophobia
“Gays in the military - everybody says, ‘Ooh, don’t let them in!’ I say: ‘Let them fight!’ cos I’m not fighting anybody. I don’t mind if Russian tanks are rolling down Flatbush Avenue, I ain’t fighting.”
On Rap
“I love rap music, but I’m tired of defending it. It’s hard to defend ‘I got hos’ on an intellectual level. It’s hard to defend ‘Move bitch, get out the way!’”
“Even the US government hates rap. You know why I say that? ‘Cause they don’t arrest anybody that kills rappers. They have no clues, no suspects. You tell me they can find Saddam Hussein in a hole but you can’t tell me who shot Tupac?”
On Iraq
“They lied to me. ‘Iraq - the most dangerous country in the world.’ If it was so dangerous how come they took the entire country in two weeks? Shit, you couldn’t even take Baltimore in two weeks.”
On Hillary Clinton
“I think America is ready for a woman president. But does it have to be that one?”
On George Bush
“He has fucked up so bad that it’s hard for a white man to run for president.”
On Britney Spears’ custody troubles
“Even OJ got to keep his kids, and he killed their mother.” |
