20 Questions: Chris Rock

He is on a roll. With his long-distance telephone ads, his providing the voice for Nike's Lil' Penny spots, his comedy album ("Roll With the New"), his HBO late-night series and his first book ("Rock This!"), it's been a veritable landslide for Chris Rock, Brooklyn native and resident.

But the roll hasn't always been smooth. The son of a Bedford-Stuyvesant truck driver, Rock was bused to an all-white elementary school, where he "was smacked around like a hockey puck" by some of his classmates. He left high school early with the idea of becoming Eddie Murphy. One night, while Rock was waiting to go on at a Manhattan comedy club, the superstar walked in and befriended Rock, and soon the kid was rolling with the Black Pack.

The Murphy association landed Rock a spot on an HBO comedy special and a bit part in "Beverly Hills Cop II," but that didn't guarantee a career. He spent years on the comedy circuit, where he learned from up-and-comers Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen and Sam Kinison. There were funny appearances in "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka," "Boomerang" and his own movie, the rap satire "CB4." But Rock's career took its big upward turn during a three-year stint on "Saturday Night Live." That growth continued with half a season on "In Living Color." His half-hour HBO stand-up special "Big Ass Jokes" won a cable Ace award. That was followed by his landmark "Bring the Pain" special in which he skewered politicians, black leaders, obnoxious black behavior and the murky waters of relationships. Rock has been a big boulder ever since.

Nelson George dined with him at a Brooklyn luncheonette. George reports: "Eating a few blocks from his house, Rock was treated with due deference by the staff. A man and his daughter stopped by for an autograph, but most of the customers respected the comic's privacy. Rock, who sometimes refers to himself as 'the duke of doubt,' is not going to allow this current popularity to blur his long-range goal--being funny until he drops."

1.

[Q] Playboy: Considering your success as a stand-up and the number of stand-ups with sitcoms, why is there no sitcom on your résumé? Not even a pilot.

[A] Rock: Because I don't like sitcoms. I grew up in one of the worst eras for sitcoms--the Seventies: Three's Company, The Love Boat. Seinfeld grew up with an appreciation of sitcoms because he watched The Odd Couple. I grew up watching really wacky shows. It tainted my outlook. I wish I could shake it, because there's a lot of money in it.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Why do most current black sitcoms suck?

[A] Rock: It's weird, because we've had some really good black sitcoms. The Jeffersons is as funny as any sitcom ever was. Way better than those Seventies shows I just mentioned. Good Times was good when it had the dichotomy of Jimmie Walker and John Amos. But the problem is larger than black sitcoms. The problem is that TV has become radio. It's on 24 hours a day, and when you're on 24 hours a day you're going to play a lot of bullshit.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Bill Cosby has been critical of your generation of black comedians. Is this his problem or yours?

[A] Rock: I love Bill Cosby, but he's overreacting. I mean, how many guys are going to be good at anything? This is the era of the Def Comedy Jam, so let's say there have been 100 comedians on that show. How many of those guys can be good? The reason you're interviewing me now is that most people aren't good. If most guys were good, I'd make $200 a week. Like the jock who also has a good personality and is smart, Cosby just doesn't understand mediocrity.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Are black people too sensitive about their depiction in the media?

[A] Rock: A lot of times we don't know how to watch art and enjoy it for what it is. Either I'm liking it or I'm not. Don't think some guy telling pussy jokes is going to hold back the civil rights movement. We need to be more like the Italians who can watch a good Mafia movie and say, "That's a good movie" and not be affected by it.

5.

[Q] Playboy: What was the toughest part of your tenure on Saturday Night Live?

[A] Rock: The ghost of Eddie Murphy. His shoes were really hard to fill. A lot of the time I was there I didn't think I was doing good work because I was judging myself against him, and people around me were judging me against him. I was as good as David Spade or Rob Schneider or anybody else in the cast. I held up my end, but the ghost of Eddie Murphy was powerful.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Is there a contemporary version of Murphy's Black Pack, which included Arsenio Hall, Keenen Ivory and Damon Wayans and Robert Townsend?

[A] Rock: Nobody hangs out together like that because everyone is working. For a long time when Eddie had the Black Pack, he was the only one in that crew actually working. He was the only one with a big house. He had the pool, so everybody hung out with him. My contemporaries--Martin Lawrence, Mark Curry, Chris Tucker, Joe Torry--we all have our own cribs. But there's still a lot of camaraderie. Tucker is like my brother. Dave Chappelle is like my little brother. Martin is like my crazy cousin. It's like we're frat brothers who went to different colleges.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Explain your friendship with Sam Kinison and his influence on you.

[A] Rock: There are a lot of guys who had an influence on me as a kid, but nobody had more influence on me as a grown man, on my comedy, than Kinison. He's the only guy in the past 25 years who did something new. He had a whole new style--the yelling, the dark, dark, dark subjects. Not stuff you didn't want to talk about, but stuff you weren't even thinking about talking about. Everybody was doing, "Take my wife, please"; he was doing, "My wife took me to the cleaners." The man would also question religion in a comedy routine. Loved him.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Have you heard from the Tossed Salad Man?

[A] Rock: Never have heard from the Tossed Salad Man. I think he's in jail for life, so I don't think he's going to pop up. None of his friends have called either.

9.

[Q] Playboy: You've blasted Marion Barry in your act. Has the mayor responded?

[A] Rock: While covering the Republican Convention for Politically Incorrect, I talked to him on the phone. He mentioned to me that he didn't like the jokes I was telling. He said I was doing a disservice to the city of Washington, D.C. Then I met him at the Democratic Convention while appearing on Tom Joyner's radio show. We shook hands and he gave me a look. At that moment I could tell he was thinking of smacking the shit out of me. I won't be doing any more jokes about him.

10.

[Q] Playboy: Are Republicans funnier than Democrats?

[A] Rock: It's easier to make fun of Republicans than Democrats because Republicans don't bend. Extremism is always funnier. Paul Tsongas was never going to be as funny as Jesse Helms. If you caught Tsongas out there he'd go, "OK, you got me." Helms will try to change the law and get you arrested.

11.

[Q] Playboy: You're a member of the hip-hop generation. How has that affected your comedy?

[A] Rock: You can listen to Bill Cosby and tell he listens to jazz, because it's about setting the mood, taking your time to get into it. You really have to listen to get into it. Because of his love for jazz, Cosby uses the longest setup in the world, and it's just fine. Me, coming up on rap, I get to it right away because in rap you get to it right away. Musically, when they sample they take all the bad parts out of the record and loop the good parts. Like my comedy, it's short and to the point.

12.

[Q] Playboy: You have said that women love a man with a sense of humor. Do you think that humor helped you get your wife?

[A] Rock: It helped in the sense that I had a job, that I elevated myself to a spot where I could meet such a woman. But funny is overrated. It's not so important as money. If you get some money you can go see a comedy. Bill Gates can watch Seinfeld with his woman. She doesn't mind that Bill's not a quick wit.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Who is the greatest stand-up comedian ever?

[A] Rock: Richard Pryor has a body of work that nobody will be able to touch. He might be the greatest stand-up comedian ever. Cosby is right there too, but for different reasons. Cosby's the only guy in history who has figured out how to be funny in every phase of his life. He has jokes he told 20 years ago that he would never tell now because they're too silly for him. I don't think Cosby has ever been as funny as Pryor, but Pryor has told the same jokes his whole career.

Eddie Murphy had a stage presence comparable to Pryor's and could have been the greatest stand-up if he hadn't gotten so deep into movies.

You know the guy who is right next to Pryor and Cosby? George Carlin. He's found ways to be funny at different points in his life. Carlin is so funny he's found ways to change his views on things. That's a whole other thing. Cosby will never say, "I was wrong about --" and tell a joke about it. Carlin can. Carlin gets overlooked because he never became a superstar in movies or on television.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Is there a bulletproof joke--a perfect joke that anyone could tell and get a laugh with?

[A] Rock: No. Every joke has a hole in it. Every joke is nonsense next to logic. There's always someone who's not going to get it.

15.

[Q] Playboy: You do a lot of relationship material in your act. Does any of it get you into trouble with your wife?

[A] Rock: Every now and then she'll bring up something. "Do you really feel that way? Is that about me?" When I mention something onstage it has usually happened a couple of times in real life. What happens with my wife is, she does something that reminds me of what an ex-girlfriend did. Then I realize all women do this, and turn it into a joke.

16.

[Q] Playboy: References to your family--brothers, uncles, your parents--come up often in your comedy. Is your family funny?

[A] Rock: Rocks have big personalities. My grandfather was funny. My dad is funny. All my uncles are hysterical. I am not the funniest guy in my family. If you get us at a gathering I pretty much shut up and let everybody do their thing. In most comedians' families there's a lot of misguided wit. Then one person in the family takes it to the stage.

17.

[Q] Playboy: You have your own late-night show on HBO. Has it been difficult going from being interviewee to interviewer?

[A] Rock: People make a much bigger deal of it than it is. I interview one person a week for five minutes. I'm a little spoiled as an interviewer. My first interview was for VH-1, with the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Then with Michael Jordan for Vibe. My third, and the first on my show, was with Johnnie Cochran. So they were people I was interested in and a big fan of.

It's going to get hard when I have to interview people I couldn't care less about. The trick will be not letting them know. The biggest reason I took the HBO offer and turned down all the others I had for nightly shows was that I couldn't imagine having to interview some bad sitcom star. "So, Bronson, how's it going?"

18.

[Q] Playboy: There's a knock that your generation of Saturday Night Live cast members aren't becoming as big in movies as your predecessors. Would you care to respond?

[A] Rock: There's a big myth that everybody who leaves SNL is successful in movies. In reality there are maybe five guys--Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. Billy Crystal has done well. There have been more than 100 cast members and maybe five are certifiable movie stars. Most of those who succeed create their own projects. Adam Sandler writes his own stuff. The Ghostbusters guys wrote that movie. Mike Myers came up with Wayne's World and Austin Powers. When you write movies you have something you want to say comedically, there's some joke you want people to see. Then there are some people who write movies to make money, and when you do that you're just going to fuck up.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Who's the finest woman in America?

[A] Rock: I hate to be obvious. You could say Janet Jackson or Halle Berry and that would be it. You know who I always thought was fine? Phylicia Rashad. Vivica Fox is bad, too.

20.

[Q] Playboy: How did you like writing your first book?

[A] Rock: I just sat and riffed. I don't want to sound like one of those guys who says he's just flowing with jokes, but a lot of it is just telling funny stories. When I was a kid the teacher would ask us to write a story and I'd always write a funny one. So that's what the book is. It was tedious. Don't know if I'll do another one. With all the stuff I wrote down I kept thinking, I could do this onstage. Why am I writing it to be read when I could write it to perform?

America's freshest comic on his roots, the perils of humor and what's shaking with the tossed salad man