Chris Rock Being Brilliant. The Best Quotes From Chris Rock’s Best Top Five Interviews

Published by Interrobang Staff at December 8, 2014

Chris Rock as been all over the country promoting his new movie “Top Five” which opens nationwide on Friday, December 12th. The movie was written by, directed by and stars Chris Rock, which means that Chris Rock is also the film’s main spokesperson. While making the rounds doing press for “Top Five”, Chris has said some pretty brilliant things on a lot of topics including race, politics, the state of stand up comedy and Bill Cosby. It’s been a long time since we’ve heard from Chris in the press, and it’s been long overdue, so we collected some of the best of what Chris Rock had to say while promoting “Top Five”.

Chris Rock talks about Race in Hollywood

“It’s a white industry. Just as the NBA is a black industry. I’m not even saying it’s a bad thing. It just is. And the black people they do hire tend to be the same person. That person tends to be female and that person tends to be Ivy League. And there’s nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, that’s what I want for my daughters. But something tells me that the life my privileged daughters are leading right now might not make them the best candidates to run the black division of anything. And the person who runs the black division of a studio should probably have worked with black people at some point in their life.” (from the Hollywood Reporter)

“But forget whether Hollywood is black enough. A better question is: Is Hollywood Mexican enough? You’re in L.A, you’ve got to try not to hire Mexicans. It’s the most liberal town in the world, and there’s a part of it that’s kind of racist — not racist like “Fuck you, nigger” racist, but just an acceptance that there’s a slave state in L.A. There’s this acceptance that Mexicans are going to take care of white people in L.A. that doesn’t exist anywhere else.” (from the Hollywood Reporter)

When there’s a hot part in town and the guys are reading for it, that’s just what happens. It was never like, “Is it going to be Ryan Gosling or Chiwetel Ejiofor for Fifty Shades of Grey?” And you know, black people f—, too. White women actually want to f— black guys, sometimes more than white guys. More women want to f— Tyrese than Jamie Dornan,and it’s not even close. It’s not a contest. Even Jamie would go, “OK, you got it.” (from the Hollywood Reporter)

I remember when they were doing Starsky & Hutch, and my manager was like, “We might be able to get you the part of Huggy Bear,” which eventually went to Snoop Dogg. I was like: “Do you understand that when my brother and I watched Starsky & Hutch growing up, I would play Starsky and he would play Hutch? I don’t want to play f—ing Huggy Bear. This is not a historical drama. This is not Thomas Jefferson. It’s a movie based on a shitty TV show, it can be anybody. Who cares. If they want me to play Starsky or Hutch, or even the bad guy, I’m down. But Huggy Bear?” (from the Hollywood Reporter)

“I don’t care if I have to play a whip, I’m going to be in a Steve McQueen movie.” (from the Hollywood Reporter)

“As I told Bill Murray, Lost in Translation is a black movie: That’s what it feels like to be black and rich. Not in the sense that people are being mean to you. Bill Murray’s in Tokyo, and it’s just weird. He seems kind of isolated. He’s always around Japanese people. Look at me right now.” (From New York Magazine on Vulture.)

“No one says, ‘Hey, Tom Cruise! Stay white! Don’t forget your whiteness! Come back and visit white people! What-chu doin’ for white people, Tom Cruise?! Yo Stallone, what are you doing for Italians?!’ Black people “want to know that Denzel loves his people. That’s he doing stuff for his people. They feel his highs and lows more than white people. If Tom Hanks does a bad movie, there’s gonna be another good movie by somebody white next week. If Denzel does a bad movie, I might not see a good black movie for a year. I am really left out here hanging.” (from CBS This Morning.)

“I’d rather work with Wes Anderson, but I don’t look like Owen Wilson. I’d love to work with Alexander Payne and Richard Linklater. But they don’t really do those movies with black people that much.” (from Rolling Stone.)

“Put it this way: I don’t want to be in anything that happened before the Jackson 5. Anything before them is just black misery. Everything before the Jackson 5 is essentially slavery, or close to it. So as far as I’m concerned, Michael, Marlon, Tito, Jermaine and Jackie ended slavery.” (from Rolling Stone.)

Chris Rock talks about Politics

“As bad as George W. Bush was, he revolutionized the presidency. He was the first president who only served the people that voted for him. He ran the country like a cable network; he only catered to his subscribers.”(from Rolling Stone.)

“Michelle Obama could be the next president if she wanted to be. You ever seen her speak? She could be married to her husband and denounce him at the same time – she’s that good: “My husband was good, but we’re going to do things a little differently this time.” (from Rolling Stone.)

“So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president,” he says. “That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years.” (from Rolling Stone.)

“Obama is like the polio vaccine of racism — people still get polio and die, but there is a vaccine. They don’t have to get it. And my kids, you know, it’s been 12 years now and there hasn’t been one racial incident in my mostly white neighborhood — not even a tiny one.” (from Rolling Stone.)

(On Bill Clinton taking political shots at Obama during the 2008 Presidential Election.) “He’s a dick, but you’re talking about a guy who’s embarrassed his wife. So he had a choice, and I couldn’t judge him. I had to choose between pissing off all the black people in the world or having my wife mad at me? Then the hell with the black people, because he doesn’t live with all the black people. He lives with his wife.” (from New York Magazine on Vulture)

Chris Rock talks about Robin Williams

“Comedians kill themselves. Talk to 100 comedians this week, everybody knows somebody who killed themselves. I mean, we always say ignorance is bliss. Well, if so, what’s the opposite? Some form of misery. Being a comedian, 80 percent of the job is just you notice shit, which is a trait of schizophrenics too. You notice things people don’t notice.” (from New York Magazine on Vulture.)

Chris Rock talks about Race in America

“Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.” (from New York Magazine on Vulture.)

“If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.” It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t.” (from Grantland.com)

“Be a role model to your kids. You just are. Your kids watch you every day. They kind of do what you do. But the whole “Be a role model to people”

is kind of racist when you think about it. It’s not like, “Get on the back of the bus, n----” racist. It suggests that my behavior is not natural. It’s like, “Hey I don’t beat my wife because I don’t beat my wife, not because I’m trying to help the race out.” Know what I mean? I read because I want to read. It’s like, you have a negative image of your people as a whole if you’re putting all of your eggs in my basket. Or a basket of my behavior. Really? I don’t smoke crack because I don’t want to smoke crack, not because I’m trying to help out. So you’re saying if I wasn’t famous, I’d just be in jail and cracked up if no one was watching me? No.” (from Grantland.com)

“I love being famous — it’s almost like being white!” (from the Today Show)

“That was 1991, it was still gangster to date a white girl. That shit was like, “Who the fuck are you? Rick James?” I dated white girls and had eggs and shit thrown at me – motherfuckers throwing beer cans at me in my convertible. And those were real white girls! These white girls now . . . white men don’t even get mad when you’re with them ’cause they’re not real white girls. Back in ’89, ’91, you get killed for Loni Anderson. Today, nobody’s killing you for fucking Gwyneth Paltrow.” (from Rolling Stone.)

Chris Rock talks about the Difference Between Being Rich and Poor

“Oh, people don’t even know. If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets. If the average person could see the Virgin Airlines first-class lounge, they’d go, “What? What? This is food, and it’s free, and they … what? Massage? Are you kidding me?” (from New York Magazine on Vulture.)

“Rich 50 is like 36.” (from Rolling Stone.)

Chris Rock talks about his SNL Monologue on the World Trade Center and Terrorism

“Honestly, it’s not that people were offended by what I said. They get offended by how much fun I appear to be having while saying it. You could literally take everything I said on Saturday night and say it on Meet the Press, and it would be a general debate, and it would go away. But half of it’s because they think they can hurt comedians.” (from New York Magazine on Vulture.)

Chris Rock talks about Bill Cosby

I don’t know what to say. What do you say? I hope it’s not true. That’s all you can say. I really do. I grew up on Cosby. I love Cosby, and I just hope it’s not true. It’s a weird year for comedy. We lost Robin, we lost Joan, and we kind of lost Cosby. (from New York Magazine on Vulture.)

“You know what, I talked to Hannibal a couple of times. He had no idea this thing was going to blow up like this. I can’t speak for him, but he did not do it for what’s happened. He thought he was just telling a joke to the people there. He had no idea it was going to blow up.” (from Grantland.com)

Chris Rock talks about Stand Up Comedy

“Now I’m not Murphy, but I’ve done fine. And I try to help young black guys coming up because those people took chances on me. Eddie didn’t have to put me in Beverly Hills Cop II. Keenen Wayans didn’t have to put me in I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. Arsenio didn’t have to let me on his show. I’d do the same for a young white guy, but here’s the difference: Someone’s going to help the white guy. Multiple people will.” (from the Hollywood Reporter)

I swear I just had a conversation with the people at the Comedy Cellar about how we can make cell phones into cigarettes. If you would have told me years ago that they were going to get rid of smoking in comedy clubs, I would have thought you were crazy. (from New York Magazine on Vulture.)

I always call Ellen DeGeneres the gay Rosa Parks. If Rosa Parks had one of the most popular daytime TV shows, I’m sure the civil-rights movement would’ve moved a little bit faster too. (from New York Magazine on Vulture)

(On Dennis Miller) “Yeah, he was there my first year. He used to bust my balls. He’d come into my office and say, “Hey, Rock, how’s that ‘next Eddie’7 thing working out?” Oh, he’s definitely less funny. You know where he’s going. Smart as hell, but you know where he’s going. The middle’s where it’s at, comically. I mean, what do you got? Miller, Stewart, Maher.” (from New York Magazine on Vulture)

“I hate when guys talk about ‘I’m edgy.’ The worst comics think that way. It’s not edgy if you’re talking about it! You just live it. Tupac didn’t talk about it. He just lived it. It sneaks into your work. Richard Pryor wasn’t edgy. Richard Pryor was just Richard Pryor. I’m not Marilyn Manson. I’m not trying to shock people.” (from Rolling Stone.)

“Bill Cosby as a writer is every fucking bit as good as Bob Dylan. But no one thinks of him in that way – they just think, “Oh, he’s funny.” Demetri Martin is probably more of an artist than Rihanna – she’s a great singer and entertainer, but Demetri Martin puts that shit on paper. He’s writing and creating. It’d be nice if that existed in America. When I’m in, you know, New Zealand, they treat me like I’m Thelonious Monk. Like I’m John Coltrane. When Dave Chappelle is in London, that motherfucker is Miles Davis. That’s some shit. You make the money in America, but you are an artist when you leave America.” (from Rolling Stone.)

“This is the golden age of stand-up. There hasn’t been this many good stand-up comedians since, like, the Fifties. Jim Gaffigan’s a monster, he’s fucking funny. Ron White is unbelievably funny. Amy Schumer’s fucking great, man. A lot of funny people. Aziz Ansari just played the Garden. Bill Burr is hysterical. Louis. The Nineties, that was just a boom of clubs, that was like disco. Artistically, it ain’t never been this good.” (from Rolling Stone.)

And Chris Rock causing an uncomfortable moment on the Today Show

“Today Show. You guys are doing good. You got Ray Rice’s wife on. You’ll show Good Morning America. ‘We got the wife on.’ We’ll show you Robin Roberts. Matt Lauer’s gonna get sick next. Watch! He’ll show you.”