Chris Rock Interview, I Think I Love My Wife

Movies Online caught up with director/writer/actor Chris Rock ("The Longest Yard,” "Madagascar,” "Head of State”) at the Los Angeles press day to promote his latest film, "I Think I Love My Wife.” The film, written, directed by, and starring Rock, is a sophisticated comedy about a man with the perfect marriage who is faced with a mind-boggling predicament when he comes face to face with the lure of a new love.

Richard Cooper’s (Chris Rock) wife is beautiful, intelligent and a fantastic mother to his children – but there’s just one little problem: he’s bored out of his suburban businessman’s mind. Despite having it all, he can’t help but fantasize about having nearly everywoman he sees. Still, it’s only fantasy. Then, one fateful day, an alluring, free-spirited, not to mention stunning, old friend suddenly appears at his office door, putting him to the ultimate test.

Nikki (Kerry Washington, "Ray,” "The Last King of Scotland”) is the exciting and bold bombshell who makes Richard’s daydreams come true, while Richard’s wife of seven years, Brenda (Gina Torres, "Alias,” "The Shield”) is so preoccupied with her own career and raising their two children that she has little time for her husband.

Just how much is Richard Cooper willing to risk when temptation comes after him? After all, he really does love his wife…at least he thinks he does. Nikki has the power to blow Richard’s formerly routine life right out of the water, while Brenda is not about to let go of the man she loves.

"I Think I Love My Wife” is written by Chris Rock and Louis C.K. (HBO’s "Lucky Louie”), based on Eric Rohmer’s French cinema classic about the temptations of married life, "Chloe in the Afternoon.” A witty, elegant but very, very French character study, "Chloe in the Afternoon” presented the story of a happily married Parisian man who loved to daydream about other women but never even entertained the idea of actually being unfaithful, until his old acquaintance Chloe dropped by his office and began to seduce him. Part of a series by New Wave cinema pioneer Rohmer entitled "Six Moral Tales,” the film probed the fuzzy lines between fantasy and infidelity and between real commitment and the hunger for instant excitement.

Rock thought it would be interesting to do the same, but in his own inimitable and fearless way. Thus was born "I Think I Love My Wife.” For Rock, the film was a chance not only to tell the humor-filled truth about the pitfalls and pratfalls of married life, but also an opportunity to shine a little ray of hope on the state of modern matrimony. "Marriage can be a beautiful, beautiful thing,” Rock muses. "Let’s root for love.”

Of course, he knew that many would laugh at the very idea of comedian Chris Rock taking on French auteur Eric Rohmer, or at least see it as a major risk. "Everybody was ‘are you nuts?’” Rock recalls. "But I said, ‘I can do this.’”

Here’s what the multi-talented Chris Rock had to tell us about his new film:

Q: When’s the premiere?

Chris Rock: It’s on tomorrow. Eddie Murphy is coming tomorrow to the premiere. Still means something to me. I still need the approval of my father. (Laughs.)

Q: As an Oscar host, Eddie left the show after he lost his award. What are your feelings on that?

Chris Rock: If they took your tape recorder right now, how long would you stay there? (Laughs)

Q: So he was robbed?

Chris Rock: I’m not saying. Man, it’s art, I mean you can’t judge who did the better movie unless everybody is doing the exact same thing. It’s all subjective. If they all played James Thunder [Murphy’s character in "Dreamgirls”] you could say who was the best one, but nobody knows who was the best? I can’t believe grown people have arguments about this.

Q: Chris, why this movie and why now?

Chris Rock: Um, I wanted to have a departure. I wanted to be a grown up in a movie. No one was ever going to cast me in a part like this. It was never going to happen. All the good parts, you watched the Oscars, nobody got nominated for a teen movie. ‘And the nominee, from ‘American Pie,’ it just doesn’t happen. So, I really wanted to play a grown man and I still wanted it to be really funny. There is like this thought that if you do something mature, it’s not going to be as funny as the gross out stuff. And I was like, ‘No man, we are going to play a grown man and it’s going to be real funny with grown man problems.’ So, that’s why.

Q: Did you cheat?

Chris Rock: No!

Q: Did your character cheat in this movie, Chris Rock? Not you.

Chris Rock: Does my character cheat in this movie? It’s weird, ya know, there are like eight different degrees of murder, but only one degree of cheating. Is that right? Did he kill somebody? Is it manslaughter? Is it aggravated manslaughter? What is it? Or is it just ‘cheatin’s cheatin’,’ no matter what? Hey, he didn’t cheat! You watched the movie, did he cheat?

Q: Uh huh.

Chris Rock: OK.

Q: There are emotional affairs.

Chris Rock: Emotional affairs. Those are the only real affairs. Those are the real ones.

Q: Why is he attracted to Nikki?

Chris Rock: She’s a breath of fresh air. She’s new. We all want new. We scour the earth for new.

Q: What happens in a relationship today, how do you get past it?

Chris Rock: What happens in life? It’s not just relationships. Think about it as life. People say, ‘Why is he bored with her?’ ‘Because he’s a human being, that’s why. Same way his wife is bored with him.’ Look at all of you. You all loved this job when you got it. (Laughs) You loved it. You thought it was the greatest job in the world and you bragged to people in your cars and your mamma. And now, we can barely get you here. (Laughs) The same job! But that is what marriage – anything that’s supposed to be forever, you’re going to get bored with it. And there is nothing wrong with it, so don’t take it personal. If you are with somebody for ten years and they are not bored with you? Then something is wrong with them.

Q: How did you approach your wife about this movie?

Chris Rock: Um, OK. The movie is a loose remake of an Eric Rohmer movie called ‘Chloe in the Afternoon.’ So, I mean that’s pretty much it. Anybody who is married to a comedian, you pretty much gotta, y’know the wife joke has been going on way before I was born. Comedians were doing jokes about wives. What we always say is, ‘I have a real wife and I have a comedy wife.’ My real wife is beautiful and intelligent and the mother of my children and my comedy wife is just horrible. And that’s how we play it and that’s how most comedians play it.

Q: Except when you go home?

Chris Rock: Well, y’know, you can go home and you gotta make a living too. You have kids, you can’t talk about the kids, you gotta wife, you gotta talk about things that people can relate to. Your life, your love life is your life, your job is just something you do to eat.

Q: But you know some real brothers like this?

Chris Rock: I know some real women like this. Please, look at this. You guys travel for a living. There are more cheaters in this room. (Laughs) You travel. People that travel, I mean, hey. (Laughs) I’m just sayin’.

Q: How did you make the leap from "Head of State” to this movie?

Chris Rock: That movie I was kind of cocky. I had done a movie before that, actually with Kerri, ‘Bad Company.’ I wasn’t really satisfied with it. And I kind of did it for the wrong reasons. And I was like, ‘I’ll do the movie myself. I don’t need y’all.’ You can’t direct a movie with that attitude, like ‘I’m gonna show everybody in High School that I’m cool.’ That’s not how you direct a movie. So, this one I came in from a much more humble place and really I sat down with my cameraman and we really went through the whole script and we just drove around New York and said, ‘How beautiful can we make this city look?’ And, y’know, ‘How great can we make Kerri look? How great can we make Gina look?’ We really got into it, more so than ‘Head of State.’ ‘Head of State’ lives and dies on the jokes. If the jokes aren’t working, the movie ain’t working. This is a story and when you don’t like the jokes, the story is carrying [it], the acting is tight and the camera is moving all the time. ‘Head of State’ is shot like a play. Just walk in a room and everybody just does what they do. It was just time to get better.

Q: Are you liking this directing thing?

Chris Rock: I am feeling it a little bit yeah. I just directed a video for the Red Hot Chili Peppers recently.

Q: How did that come about?

Chris Rock: They called me up. I’m friends with Rick Rubin and talked to him and told him how much I loved the Pepper’s album and there was a particular song, ‘Hump de Bump,’ that I really liked and he told Anthony and Anthony asked me if I would direct the video. And I said, ‘Sure, as long as you agree to be the only white people in the video.’ And they said, ‘Sure.’ So, it comes out this week on MTV, VH1 and that stuff.

Q: Do you like the shock value? Who wrote the line, ‘Are you still f*cking your black wife?’ That just killed me.

Chris Rock: I wrote that line. Cause, y’know, it’s what she would say? It’s what you would say. (Laughs) Cause I know that girl. Y’know? I know that girl. Hey, I’m in show business, I grew up on the road. I’ve been a comedian for almost 22 years. I’ve met Nikki Tru a bunch of times.

Q: Do you think people will go to this movie and think Nikki has done nothing wrong?

Chris Rock: Nikki hasn’t really done…she’s just Nikki. Brenda could have been Nikki if she didn’t meet Richard or if she went the wrong way, and Nikki could have been Brenda if she just married some other, ya know what I mean? It’s all choices and where you end up at. We are all the same. It’s just a journey. I don’t think Nikki is necessarily the villain. She is just doing what she does, ya know?

Q: I’m not gonna cut you. (Laughs)

Chris Rock: No, no. I didn’t write it as a villain. One of my favorite movies is ‘The Fugitive,’ because Tommy Lee Jones is just doing his job. And that’s how it is in real life. The villain isn’t really like, ‘Ha, ha, ha. I must destroy you.’ Sometimes the villain is just doing their job. And Nikki is just, ‘Hey, I’m here. You’re here. I’m hot. I know you. It’s not like we don’t know each other.’ In a country where the divorce rate is 52%, is it really bad to wait a marriage out? Just check in from time to time. Y’know, how ya’ll doing? I should check in on Halle Berry. ‘Hey, how ya’ll doing?’ (Laughs)

Q: There’s a line in the movie when you say ‘People who are attracted to each other, they have to work it out.’

Chris Rock: You know what that is. The important thing is when you get married, you just can’t get that close to somebody. You just can’t get that close. You have to put this kind of a wall up and say, ‘Alright. It’s 8 o’clock and I’m going home.’ Or whatever. You can’t let it get to that other zone because you will have to check it out. Y’know it’s like heat at the hotel. There is a big switch that you either have on heat or air conditioning, ya know what I mean, in a big building and once you turn on the heat, it takes a lot to turn that mother f*cker off. (Laughs.)

Q: If you could only listen to one CD for a whole year, what would it be and why?

Chris Rock: Oh, god. I would go with ‘Songs in the Key of Life,’ Stevie Wonder. Pleasant.

Q: What’s with you and Oprah?

Chris Rock: Hey, I love Oprah man. God bless Oprah. (Laughs) Aren’t you happy there is an Oprah? I’m so happy there is an Oprah. But I was doing fine before I met Oprah. (Laughs) But there is something about Oprah being in my life that’s made it a better life. I was doing fine.

Q: Kerri told us you were talking about how you had dinner with Oprah and Stedman and Sidney and…y’all like that now, huh?

Chris Rock: I get invited to some things. (Laughs)

Q: Can you talk about the trip to Africa for a bit?

Chris Rock: Oh, it was, it was…the trip to Africa was life changing. I’d been to Africa already, but there is something about being at the school. Y’know, because the first time I went South Africa is just so rich and so poor, because you feel so hopeless because of some of the poverty. So, it was so uplifting to see that somebody had enough money to do something about it, to really do something about it on an institutional level. So, that was great and then also it was just great – it was me and all these Black people who had never been to Africa. Descendants from slaves who went to Africa and were kind of partying, like, ‘Hey,’ we came back triumphantly. Y’know what I mean? We left in shackles, but we came back in private jets. It was like, ‘Yo, we did it, alright?’

Q: What do you think about the criticism she got about opening a school in South Africa and not in the U.S.?

Chris Rock: Hey, man. The devil. Y’know it’s like if she opened up a prison, it would be like, ‘Thank you Oprah. Thank you!’

Q: You worked on this script for five years or longer.

Chris Rock: Uh, four.

Q: So, do you have any other scripts?

Chris Rock: I did other movies in between, like, ‘Uh, here! Here’s a movie! Let’s go do this one! (laughs) Let’s wait on this one.’

Q: Do you have any others that are lying around?

Chris Rock: I got a couple. I gotta go dust them off and see what’s there. I don’t know, this movie is such a jump for me that I don’t want to go backwards. I kind of like where I’m at artistically. I think I’m in a new zone or a zone that a lot of brothers don’t get to go into, so I’d like to stay here for a minute.

Q: What do you mean by brothers?

Chris Rock: I don’t know. It’s just a different type of movie. It’s just really realistic. The real stuff? I don’t see a lot of that from us.

Q: Were you inspired by any other directors? Because when I was watching it, I was reminded of Albert Brooks.

Chris Rock: I know every Woody [Allen] beat, but Alexander Payne is really my living director idol right now. I’d love to work with him.

Q: How did you meet your own wife?

Chris Rock: I met my wife – this is a great story. I was at a Knicks game. And me and my friends were leaving the Knicks game and it’s at Madison Square Garden and right next door is the Theater at the Garden and they were having the Essence Awards. And you see all these beautiful black women walking in. And we’re like, ‘Man, we have got to crash this party.’ And we crashed the party, and it’s so funny, as we are walking through there, it’s like all these women are so beautiful, ‘Hey, this is where you meet your wife. This spot.’ And I met my wife at the Essence Awards.

Q: What was your line?

Chris Rock: I didn’t really have a line. She was working for Terry Williams at the time. She was working in publicity, so she actually came up to me and said, ‘Can you take some pictures with so and so?’ And I was like, ‘Hey, I’ll do whatever you want.’ (Laughs)

Q: So how is ‘Bee Movie’?

Chris Rock: ‘Bee Movie’ is pretty good. Jerry [Seinfeld] don’t play that. Jerry is thorough, man.

Q: Who do you play? Have you seen any of it?

Chris Rock: I play a mosquito. It’s kind of cool. I feel a little bit. It’s like ‘Shrek.’ It’s not like a whole new technology. It’s like a little better than ‘Shrek.’

Q: When he asked you to do the trailer did you think you were doing voices?

Chris Rock: No, he told me what it was, but he actually told me Spielberg was going to be in it and when I get there, there is no Spielberg. (Laughs) So, he kind of owes me. I don’t know how. I’m just gonna hold on to that chip and just figure out when I get to cash it in.

Q: How is fatherhood?

Chris Rock: Fatherhood is great. There is no downside to fatherhood.

Q: You have done everything, what do you want to do next?

Chris Rock: I just want to work with some good people. I’m so self generated. It’s not like, I’d rather be Matt Damon in ‘Hey, ‘Bourne Supremacy,’ when do we start?’ I’m not sitting around writing movies cause y’know, cause I want to. I have to if I want to take advantage of this opportunity and right now they are letting me be in movies. But, they don’t kind of make the kind of movies I want to make. They don’t let Black people make them anyway.

Q: Does that mean the next project is going to be something you write and direct?

Chris Rock: I would hope not. Just cause I need a break. Y’know, but I’ll definitely write and direct soon. Y’know, give yourself two years, three years. That Woody every year thing is hard, but I like how Alexander does it. Every three or four years he comes out with a new one.

Q: Are you going to go back to stand up? Tour or special?

Chris Rock: Hopefully this year. Just a tour right now. I like it. I love it.

Q: Do you love topical stuff or political things you want to chat about?

Chris Rock: Oh, I got to figure it out. It’s a good time. It’s like I write an act, I do it, and then I wait for it to get a little stale, and then I stop. I hate to be out there and then you have to wait a few years for the world to change.

Q: What do you think of Barack Obama?

Chris Rock: I like Barack Obama. I thought he was really good the other day, the speech in Selma. I thought he was excellent. I thought he had the eloquence of Bill Clinton with all the fire and brimstone of Jesse Jackson. It was a powerful combination that I hadn’t seen from anybody.

Q: Are you going to go against type? Do something really serious?

Chris Rock: This is serious. This is kind of against type. I’ve done ‘New Jack City’ and ‘Nurse Betty.’ If the right part [came along], I would love to. It’s just they don’t come along that much. You’ve got to write it for yourself, y’know? I write this, I write TV shows, I write stand up.

Q: What about the fantasy of being single?

I don’t want to be single at all. I have no desire to be single. It’s something to say in a movie, but if I was single, I’d be married. [Laughs] I’d be getting married. Please…Being single is for the birds. Who the hell wants to be single? I want to know who I’m eating with.

"I Think I Love My Wife” opens in theaters on March 16^th.