Addressing concerns about his brand of comedy and the Academy Awards, Chris Rock said: “I’ve been on ‘Oprah’ four times. That’s four hours of daytime television, and I had a good old curse-free time.”
January 20, 2005
This Oscar Host Is Willing to Call It as He Sees It
By LOLA OGUNNAIKE
Correction Appended
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Jan. 18 – The Oscar nominations have yet to be announced, but Chris Rock, the host of next month’s Academy Awards ceremony, has already decided who one of the evening’s big winners should be: Jamie Foxx, the star of the biopic “Ray.”
“I am rooting for Jamie, and if he doesn’t win, I’m going to talk about it on the show,” Mr. Rock promised, a sly grin tiptoeing across his face. And if Mr. Foxx comes up empty? “I’ll take an Oscar from one of the sound or light people that win and give it to him,” Mr. Rock said. “Jamie Foxx is not going to walk out of that place without an Oscar.”
He was no less forthright about his pans. Of “The Aviator,” Martin Scorsese’s drama about Howard Hughes, the germ-phobic Hollywood mogul, Mr. Rock said: “It’s a weird movie; it’s well made, but a story about a rich guy who gets things done doesn’t excite me. Oooh, he overcame obstacles, like how much money to spend. And he washed his hands a lot.”
The casting of the acerbic Mr. Rock as host of the 77th annual Oscars, which ABC will broadcast on Feb. 27, is an untraditional move for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which in recent years has chosen less caustic comedians like Billy Crystal and Steve Martin to serve as M.C.
“Edgy is the word that keeps coming up,” Bruce Davis, the academy’s executive director, said. “I like to hear that people are nervous, because that means you’re more likely to watch.”
With ratings for NBC’s Golden Globes broadcast down 40 percent from a year ago and few of the expected nominees doing huge box-office numbers, an even heavier weight to both attract and keep an audience is being placed on Mr. Rock’s narrow shoulders. Gilbert Cates, the executive producer of the broadcast, said he was also hoping that Mr. Rock would draw more young male viewers than have watched recent Oscar shows.
ABC has yet to decide if it will impose a time delay on the show, but Mr. Cates said that he and the academy were opposed. Mr. Rock said he expected a delay in the wake of Janet Jackson’s performance at the Super Bowl last year. “What Janet pulled out was not a breast,” Mr. Rock said. “You pull out breasts for mammograms. You pull out breasts to feed children. What Janet pulled out was – ” Here the comic used a word that a delay would most certainly bleep from the Oscars.
In 1999 when the director Elia Kazan received an honorary Oscar, Mr. Rock called him a “rat” during a brief but biting routine on the show, making reference to Mr. Kazan’s McCarthy-era conduct. Still, Mr. Rock said that he could understand what all the fretting is about. “I’ve been on ‘Oprah’ four times,” he said. “That’s four hours of daytime television, and I had a good old curse-free time.”
He turned serious briefly. “This act works everywhere,” he said picking at a cheeseburger in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel. “I’ll play the Apollo and the Senate in the same day and tear both places apart. Bill Cosby works everywhere. Richard Pryor works everywhere. Ray Romano used to open up shows for me in front of all-black audiences and he would kill. He would kill so much I would be nervous to go on after him.”
“If something is funny,” Mr. Rock continued with a shrug that read, duh, “people like it.”
He has hired a team of 10 writers, including Ali LeRoi and Wanda Sykes, who both worked with him on his HBO series, “The Chris Rock Show.” On Mr. Martin’s advice, the team also includes John Max, a “Tonight” show writer who has worked on the Oscars with Mr. Martin and Mr. Crystal. “Sight unseen I hired the guy,” Mr. Rock said. “And you know what? He’s really good.” He said he also planned to seek pointers from Mr. Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg – who was criticized for off-color humor when she was the host in 1999.
Mr. Cates said no restrictions had been placed on Mr. Rock. “He doesn’t need me to explain what the realities of network television are,” he said. “I think it would be both undignified and inappropriate.”
So what subjects, if any, will Mr. Rock avoid?
“A ‘Vera Drake’ joke probably won’t play,” he said, nor will a “Motorcycle Diaries” riff. “You’ve got to talk about ‘Passion of the Christ,’ whether it gets nominated or not. And you’ve got to talk about ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′. You’ve got to play to what the audience at home went to see.”
His days now consist of screening past Academy Awards shows and catching as many movies as possible, at least three a week now, a pace that will have to pick up as the broadcast approaches. Mr. Rock is also tweaking material at comedy clubs in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The comedian said he would probably try out some jokes at senior citizen homes, too. He was not kidding.
Mr. Rock is no awards show novice. He was a host of the MTV Video Music Awards in 1997, 1999 and 2003. Van Toffler, president of the MTV Networks Group, called the academy’s choice of Mr. Rock “brilliant.”
“I’ve seen Chris at benefits and I’ve seen him do clubs,” Mr. Toffler said. “He is scientific about who is watching and will work that crowd.”
It was Mr. Rock who, during the 1999 MTV awards, joked that Jennifer Lopez’s bottom was so big it needed its own limousine. “Chris definitely increased my expenditures for apology gifts,” Mr. Toffler conceded. “I think the production team at the Oscars should prepare for flowers and candy because he might insult a few people.”
While Warren Beatty, Tommy Lee Jones and David Carradine tucked into power lunches at the Polo Lounge, well-wishers stopped by Mr. Rock’s banquette. The actor Stephen Dorff asked Mr. Rock if he was ready for his gig. “I’m in shape,” the comic said. “Put the money on me.” A high-ranking executive at William Morris, the talent agency, urged Mr. Rock to keep the telecast under nine hours.
The most beloved V.I.P.’s to interrupt the lunch interview, however, were Mr. Rock’s wife, Malaak Compton Rock, and his precocious 2-year-old daughter, Lola. When asked what her father does for a living, she answered with a smile and one word: “Jokes.”
Mr. Rock, who Time magazine once declared “the funniest man in America,” has won three Emmys and two Grammys. While he easily sells out arenas, his appearances in films like “Pootie Tang” and “Bad Company” have not earned him the movie-star status of Oscar hosts like Mr. Martin or Mr. Crystal.
So what is he doing as host of the Academy Awards? At this point in his career, Mr. Rock, said he has outgrown the MTV awards – “I’m too old; it’s Dave Chappelle’s time” – and finally feels mature enough to take the Oscar post. Mr. Rock still ran his decision by a few friends, something he said he rarely does.
“Some people were like, can you be cutting edge and host the Oscars?” Mr. Rock said. “Is doing this going to hurt your brand?
Don’t expect Mr. Rock to imitate Billy Crystal, whose host turns have included singing and dancing through elaborate production numbers. “I like what Billy did, but I can’t do that,” Mr. Rock said. “Nobody wants to see me out there singing about ‘Sideways.’ If I sing about ‘Sideways,’ I’m playing Caroline’s. If I keep it like how I do it, I’m at the Garden.”
Besides the material he’s developing for the show, Mr. Rock is also working on jokes for an “after-gig.” Emulating one of his idols, Prince, who often holds intimate jam sessions after his concerts, Mr. Rock plans to do a 45-minute show at a club after the Oscars.
“I’m working on that as much as I’m working on the ceremony,” he said, laughing. “How funny is that?”
Correction: January 21, 2005, Friday:
Because of an editing error, an article in The Arts yesterday about the comedian Chris Rock, who is to be host of the Academy Awards ceremony next month, omitted a word, reversing the meaning of a sentence about concerns that he might be too acerbic or profane. The sentence should have read: “Still, Mr. Rock said that he could NOT understand what all the fretting is about.”
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