Sick In The Head: Conversations About Life And Comedy Part 6

I remember watching Chris Rock's act in the late eighties and thinking, Not all of this guy's jokes are perfect, but his best jokes are better than everybody else's jokes by far. And slowly, over the next decade or so, we all watched as his entire act became as great as his best jokes, and he ruled the comedy world.

When I started doing stand-up again in 2014, I spent the better part of four months at the Comedy Cellar in New York, waiting for my turn onstage, watching other comedians. I saw so many incredible performances, so many inspiring new voices and original acts. But I also came away from it thinking, Chris Rock is not only the best comedian in the world, he is WAY better than everyone else. Period.

Judd Apatow: It's funny. We've been in the business for twenty or thirty years now, long enough to where, you know, we've seen the winds blow in both directions.

Chris Rock: Oh, it's unbelievable. If you put it in a movie, no one would believe it.

Judd: Right.

Chris: No one would be like, "Really?" You're in a big movie, and suddenly, people call you up who haven't talked to you in years. "Yeah, we've got to hang out! Come on the boat." Whatever.

Judd: "Come on the boat."

Chris: Get hot, you're on the boat. Cool off, and you don't get that boat invite like you used to.

Judd: It's almost impossible to keep success going because you have to stop at some point, to rest and learn something new. It's essential. People's interest in you goes away so quickly, but you have no choice but to step off the boat sometimes.

Chris: Yeah, if you're going to try to stay interesting.

Judd: People don't get that. In Hollywood, they think you going onstage to do a play means: Whatever happened to Chris Rock?

Chris: Exactly. I mean, doing a play is literally the equivalent of: Oh, he's doing open mics again.

Judd: When was your last HBO special-2008?

Chris: Yeah, about then.

Judd: How do you decide when you're in the mood to pursue stand-up again, and do a new special?

Chris: To me, the key is, you got to ask yourself, what kind of comedian do you want to be? You can be a guy who plays every night or every week, the guy who has the same act, or maybe the same act with a tiny bit of turnover. Seinfeld and I always have this debate: the guy versus the act. You can keep the same act and work all the time, like Jerry does. But I don't want to be that guy. I have nothing against that guy. Most guys I love are that guy.

Judd: Like Leno. He never did a special.

Chris: Leno, yeah. And Rickles. Most guys have the same act, they really do. But then you've got this other crew of guys-the Carlin/Pryor school-who never wanted people to know what they were going to say. And in order to make that work, you have to live life. You've got to live like a musician, basically. You go on the road and drop an alb.u.m and then you go off and live life for a couple of years. You come back and, hey, the world's changed a little bit. And so you've got to change a little bit.

Judd: Who are the comedians that have had the most impact on you?

Chris: Eddie Murphy. Even though the guy hasn't been onstage in twenty-five years or whatever, he was really into the idea of: It's got to be an event. He's the main influence. I got spoiled hanging around him at a young age. And from him, I came to realize that my words have to be an event. It has to be a big deal. It can be big. You know, I saw Chappelle at Radio City not too long ago. It's like, you're seeing me in the same place you see Prince; why can't it be as good? Some guys look at it that way. When I was young, though, most guys didn't think that way.

Judd: Today, I feel like people put the special out, and then think they have to have the next act written, too, so they can tour off the special with a completely new act. That's a crazy amount of work.

Chris: I've never done that. I do a special. I tour for-until it's literally like, "Okay, I've been everywhere." But you want to leave some money on the table. The best advertis.e.m.e.nt you can have is for there to be a person out there that didn't get to see your show. That motherf.u.c.ker's like, "Oh my G.o.d. You've got to leave a few of those in every city." Once you get to that point, it's like, "Okay, let's do the special now. Let's film it. Let's put it on HBO." And that's it. And hopefully it's good enough that you don't have to work for the next three years or whatever. Hopefully it's good enough that it plays. If you get people's attention as a stand-up, you don't really have to do anything for a while. That special will last.

Judd: Do you get the urge to do stand-up again because you feel like the culture has changed and you have something new to say? Or is it just, like, "Okay, I guess it's time to start thinking about a special again"?

Chris: It comes from having something to say. It comes from being a new person. Have you lived enough life? Are you seeing the world differently? It can be something as simple as getting up onstage and talking about your kids, you know. I didn't really talk about my kids in my last special, but the special before that one, I was talking about Lola being born and keeping her off the pole. You know what I mean? So if I decide to talk about her tomorrow, twelve years will have pa.s.sed. I'll be talking about a thirteen-year-old kid. You're talking about a different person.

Judd: Suddenly the stripper joke's not as silly.

Chris: I have two daughters. That joke is never silly.

Judd: And then, the older your kids get, you have to think about their awareness of your act. My wife is going to see me do stand-up tonight. We've been together for nineteen years, and she has never seen me perform live. She's only seen a video of me doing stand-up once, and that was like the first week when I was. .h.i.tting on her. And my older daughter, too. She has never seen me do stand-up. She's about to turn seventeen. And half of my act is about her.

Chris: Wow. That's my dream, that I can stay big long enough for my kids to come see me, with their friends, and it's a cool thing. It's not charity.

Judd: How aware are they of what you do? Do they go on YouTube when you're not looking and watch?

Chris: They must. I mean, the oldest one must. I'm sure when she's at her friend's house or whatever. When I pick them up from school, I can tell every boy has seen everything I've done. They're way too nice to me. They talk to me like I'm Mingus or something. Like I'm Monk. They're freaking.

Judd: Do you ever think about changing your act as your kids get older, to help them digest it?

Chris: Nah. I'm not going that far. I always say I've got kids like Eminem's got kids. Having kids hasn't seemed to affect his act.

Judd: It's funny, I've been going through your career, just looking at all the stuff you've done-and it struck me, how you seem to have done everything. I mean, I didn't realize that you wrote a memoir-in 1997!

Chris: I wouldn't call it a memoir, but yeah.

Judd: Okay, but you've been around a long time.

Chris: I try never to brag but I'm probably the only person who has been on 60 Minutes twice and isn't dead.

Judd: That's hilarious. But you've done everything from Beverly Hills Cop to Lethal Weapon to some records. Wasn't your first alb.u.m a rap alb.u.m?

Chris: No, my first alb.u.m was a comedy alb.u.m. I put out a comedy alb.u.m eight years before I got on SNL. At one point, I did have a record deal, though. I had a deal for a rap record before I had a deal for a comedy record. I used to rap. I used to be a DJ. I sucked at it. I sucked at rapping. I sucked at DJing.

Judd: What's your connection to hip-hop? Are there rappers you've been close with?

Chris: All the old-school guys, yeah. We're like the same age. Me and Run are literally the same age and we've lived near each other. Jay, Doug E. Fresh, Flash is an old friend. MC Lyte, Kid 'n Play, Latifah, Busta. We're all the same age, hung out at the same clubs. It's like we went to high school together, in a way. I've known Queen Latifah for twenty-five years-as long as I've known Sandler or any of those guys. Now we see each other at funerals.

Judd: It's freaky.

Chris: Yeah. When I was on SNL, and even when I started doing stand-up, there were no young black stand-ups around. George Wallace was it. George Wallace, Mike Ivy. No one was hanging out with me. Everyone was like, "Get away from me, kid." So I would do sets and then I would go to the Latin Quarter or wherever the younger black people were at-and they were mostly these rap clubs. There was nothing else. Stand-up was-me and Sandler were younger than everybody for a long time. It was not a thing a twenty-year-old would do.

Judd: How does it feel hanging out in the clubs now?

Chris: I'm the oldest guy at the club every night now. Sometimes the guys are into me and sometimes they're just humoring me. Sometimes I can tell they think I suck or I'm a hack or it's like, "f.u.c.k you and your Maserati out front." I can feel it sometimes. You know.

Judd: It is weird to be this elder statesman. You feel this need to really show them why you're in this position.

Chris: Oh, I totally feel that. I love going to the Cellar and spanking the s.h.i.+t out of everybody. I love going there, at my age, and having an act that's better than the guys who are fifteen or twenty years younger than me. I'm like, "This is my seventh special. What's your f.u.c.king excuse? I got rid of six hours of s.h.i.+t. Why aren't you funny yet?"

Judd: Do you feel like comedians have gotten better? Are people funnier now?

Chris: I don't know. In some ways, they are better. There's more comedy to choose from, I would say. Hannibal Buress is kind of weird and Demetri Martin is kind of weird and, you know, Sarah Silverman has a totally different act than Kathy Griffin. So in that aspect, yes, I think there's more variety in comedy today. People are talking about different things. On the other hand, I don't know if comedians know how to work an audience anymore.

Judd: Yeah.

Chris: You know, that thing where it's just like, it literally doesn't matter who's in front of you. I find more and more comedians complain about the crowd these days. Or they're always asking, "How's the crowd?" And I'm like, "Why do you give a f.u.c.k about the crowd? I mean, if you kill tonight, is the crowd going to get the credit? And so don't give it to them if you bomb. It's not them, it's you." But I don't know. We have a lot more comedy, I would say that. There's a lot of risk taking.

Judd: Are you still engaged, creatively? Do you still feel as enthusiastic about your work as you always have? Are you on fire right now, or do you have a sense of fatigue, of just, Wow, I've done this for a long time. It's hard?

Chris: The only time I ever feel fatigue is the fact that it's really hard being up with kids early in the morning and being at a club late at night.

Judd: It's brutal.

Chris: I've got to make myself take a nap during the day if I'm going to properly do stand-up. So I do feel that fatigue. But as far as creativity? I honestly feel the energy even more now, I think. It's like that Tiger thing. Tiger is chasing Jack Nicklaus. He just is. And what is it, how many Masters does he need? I'm chasing Richard Pryor, man. I have not done-I still haven't done my version of his Long Beach concert. I've done some good stuff, but Richard Pryor in Long Beach? It's the greatest piece of stand-up ever done. It just is. I haven't got there, in my act. I got some stuff-you know, some of it is good and some of it is good in comparison to other people of my era. Pryor's special was kind of late in his career. He's not a kid doing it. That's what I'm going for.

Judd: What was your relations.h.i.+p like with Pryor?

Chris: I met him on the set of Harlem Nights. It was quick and funny. I was just hanging out and we were talking about Eddie and he was like, "Yeah, he'll get married as soon as he find a p.u.s.s.y that fits." It's like exactly what you want to hear from Richard Pryor. But I had no career then. I might as well been the water boy. I met him again, years later, when I was getting ready to do the Bring the Pain special. At that point, he was in a wheelchair, full-on MS-helped onstage, helped offstage. We were both performing at the Comedy Store every night for a month, and I would follow him.

Judd: Wow.

Chris: And a lot of nights he would actually watch my set and he would say nice things afterwards. One of the last times I saw him was-oh, I wish I could find this picture. The last time I saw him, he came and saw me at the Universal Amphitheatre. I was coming offstage and there's Richard Pryor, in a wheelchair, telling me I did a great job. It's one of the highlights of my life. One of the greatest stand-ups-you know, the Willie Mays of comedy. You know, Pryor's Willie Mays, and Cosby's Hank Aaron. Because Hank Aaron has more hits, more home runs, more RBIs than anybody. He's number one or two in every freaking category.

Judd: I was listening to the Richard Pryor box set that they put out last year. It has one disk, which has all sorts of odds and ends on it, and there's a lot of stand-up that he did about being sick. It's remarkable.

Chris: He was funny, even then. That's the crazy thing.

Judd: He was doing a bit about a girl walking up to him in his car-he's flirting with some pretty girl and he's p.i.s.sing himself because he's sick and he can't control himself. He's trying to act cool as he p.i.s.ses his pants.

Chris: Wow.

Judd: It was amazing. But even the great stuff he was doing around 1976-about, you know, the Bicentennial and Patty Hearst-it all sounds like he's playing for a hundred people, in tiny clubs.

Chris: That was the genius of the guy. The guy believed in working it out. He was like, "Okay, so I'm going to have a bad set tonight, big deal. But when you pay to see me, it's going to be right." Most comedians just don't have the guts-especially famous comedians-to get up there and not be funny, to just feel your way around this thing.

Judd: How tragic is it that Eddie Murphy won't do stand-up anymore?

Chris: Tragic. Because he can do it, you know what I mean? It's like, what if Mike Tyson could still knock people out and didn't fight? That would be sad, right? Eddie Murphy, right now, would be top three in the world. Probably number one if he worked at it. But he doesn't want to. Only financial ruin will get that guy back onstage.

Judd: I do understand how it happens, though. You feel like, I've made a lot of stuff and I don't feel the need to get up there and go through that again. But as somebody who hadn't done stand-up in twenty-two years and then just started doing it again, I see instantly why it's necessary for people like him, if they want to do interesting work in whatever medium they're doing. You have to force yourself to experience it again, and to connect with the crowd.

Chris: You should go to Eddie Murphy's house on the next fight night. You'll be entertained by the funniest man on earth. He has amazing fight parties. There's lots of people there, every black comedian imaginable-and he's funnier than everybody there. But I've given up asking him. I don't even bring it up anymore.

Judd: As you're preparing your new act, do you begin by thinking about what's important, what really needs to be said right now?

Chris: A little bit, yeah. Some of it's for the crowd, and some of it's for you. There's definitely a part of you that goes like, Okay, there's a lot of this police brutality going on. I got to look over this and figure out what my take is because people want to hear about it. I'm going to have to find a real, original take on it-not just, you know, "Hey, stay away from football players!" I'm going to have to dig deep, regardless of what else I want to talk about. You have no choice. You've got an obligation because people are paying to hear that. But again, it also depends on what kind of comedian you are. If you're Demetri Martin, you probably don't have to do that. Jerry Seinfeld doesn't have that pressure, either.

Judd: Jerry doesn't have any pressure, apparently.

Chris: Jerry's got no f.u.c.king pressure. G.o.d bless him. Jerry Seinfeld, one of the greatest comedians of all time and one of the c.o.c.kiest b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to ever live.

Judd: How did he get that c.o.c.ky? If you're neurotic in any way-like, in a normal way-he looks at you like you're insane for not getting it.

Chris: To his credit, he writes some of the best jokes ever. He really does. I mean, they're like Billy Joel songs, you know what I mean?

Judd: Yeah.

Chris: There's a lot of hip guys in the world, but who can follow Billy Joel in America, you know what I mean? I don't give a f.u.c.k who you are, I don't give a f.u.c.k if you're Sting or Bono-if you're onstage in America, there's a part of you that just hopes Billy Joel doesn't walk in. I remember going to see Billy and Elton John in concert. I kind of wanted to see Elton a little more, and I came out of it thinking, Billy Joel is actually more American than Bruce Springsteen, you know what I mean? Bruce Springsteen's a f.u.c.king Russian soldier compared to f.u.c.king Billy Joel, man. That s.h.i.+t's American. Everybody likes those records. And Jerry Seinfeld writes jokes like that. Everybody gets those f.u.c.king jokes. I've seen that guy work f.u.c.king Mexican crowds, black crowds, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. He's f.u.c.king c.o.c.ky and kills every night.

Judd: I sometimes think it seems everyone in our circle had their kids at the same time. You, me, Seinfeld, Sandler-it's a real shared experience.

Chris: It's weird. Our kids are all the same age. And we're all kind of married to the same woman.

Judd: We all have the same issues in our lives. Several decades in, everybody's kind of in the same place, trying to figure out the next phase. When people have had success and they've made money and they have families-and they're not dying to be accepted anymore, with a long career ahead of them-they're still trying to figure it out.

Chris: We're going to be old for a long f.u.c.king time, dude.

Judd: Then you see certain people, like Martin Scorsese, who just go on a tear, a late game tear. And that makes you wonder, Who am I going to be when I'm not a young punk?

Chris: You've got to make yourself scared. When I did that play not too long ago, it was like, Oh, this s.h.i.+t is scary. I'm out of my comfort zone. I'm the low man on the totem pole. I could really suck at this. But it's in moments like that that you are going to learn the most. Directing, too: What the f.u.c.k was I ever doing directing anything, you know what I mean? It scared me and I did some things that sucked. But you learn more from f.u.c.king up than you do from success, unfortunately. And failure, if you don't let it defeat you, is what fuels your future success.

Judd: What made you realize it was time to make Top Five, which is such a personal film?

Chris: Doing that play, a few years ago, inspired me. It showed me what work is again. The thing about the play was, it wasn't a revival. It was an original play. If you're doing a revival, you can rehea.r.s.e it at your house-the lines aren't going to change or whatever. But when you do an original play, when you're in previews, you get new pages, new lines, every day. "I'm going to get rid of that scene and we're going to do this scene instead." What? But being around actors really helped me. Being around creative people that had talents I didn't helped me. It opened my eyes. I don't know, I mean, I had directed two other movies in my life, but I haven't had a hit in a long time. There was a part of me that was like, Okay, if this one doesn't work, I'm kind of done. There was a part of me that was pushed against the wall, but there was also a part of me-there's a part of Top Five that's really personal, and it works. It plays like my stand-up. I did stand-up for fifteen years before I broke, you know.

Judd: So then you make this more personal movie. You show it in Toronto and the place goes crazy and you sell it to a big studio. That's the weird thing about creativity, right? When you get real, you have your biggest success.

Chris: It's the smallest movie I've ever written. Actually, it's the first time I wrote a movie. It's the first time I've written by myself.

Judd: I just finished a movie with Amy Schumer. At first, she wanted to write it with someone else, but I said to her, "I think, in ways that are hard to describe, your point of view will s.h.i.+ft because you're going to make all sorts of concessions that are destructive to-"

Chris: You're going to have a consensus. You're not going to have a vision. That's what happens. So I wrote this movie by myself. Every other movie I've done-Head of State or whatever-was like, I wasn't even writing a movie. I was writing a poster. I was thinking about the pitch meeting before I was done with the movie.

Judd: I feel like, for a lot of people, there's that moment when you go personal with your work and everything changes. Look at Louis C.K. When he revealed himself, the whole world connected with him. I felt that way with The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up and Freaks and Geeks-that's when I realized that if I just come clean, people connect in a completely different way.

Chris: I mean, there was an episode of Louis-the one where Melissa Leo gives him a b.l.o.w.j.o.b in the car. And then she says, you know, "Now you're going to eat my p.u.s.s.y." And that blew my mind. I watched that episode, and it was like the first time I heard NWA. It was like, Oh s.h.i.+t, you can do this?

Judd: Yeah.

Chris: And I thought, So why am I so scared? Why do I give a f.u.c.k about testing? All the nonsense I spent so long giving a s.h.i.+t about. And then there was the fact Louis C.K. is a guy who literally used to-you know, I hired him on my writing staff and here he is, doing this. It was like, Oh s.h.i.+t. Okay, whatever I do next has to be this honest.

EDDIE VEDDER.

(2013).