Chris Rock

Chris Rock (born February 7, 1966, Georgetown, South Carolina, U.S.) is an American comedian whose popular stand-up routine, which often addressed racial matters, led to a successful film career.

Rock grew up in the impoverished Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. After dropping out of high school at 17 (he later received a high-school-equivalency diploma), Rock played small clubs in the New York area, where he was discovered by comedian-actor Eddie Murphy. After landing parts in Murphy’s film Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) and director Keenen Ivory Wayans’s I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), Rock got his big break by earning a spot in 1990 as a cast member of Saturday Night Live. He left the show in 1993 to join the Fox network’s In Living Color, which was taken off the air shortly thereafter.

After starring in and writing the script for the film CB4 (1993), he covered the 1996 presidential campaign for ABC’s Politically Incorrect. Rock then appeared in the first of his HBO comedy specials, Big Ass Jokes (1994), which won a CableACE Award. Soon after, however, Rock found his popularity as an actor and comedian beginning to fade.

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In an effort to reignite his career, Rock went on the road in 1996, playing small clubs. There he honed his comedic repertoire, touching on subjects that were often considered taboo, such as race relations, drug addiction, and Black poverty, all the while revealing the humorous aspects of some of the more serious, painful truths of the Black experience. Bolstered by the positive reaction he received while touring, Rock once again appeared in an HBO special, Bring the Pain (1997), which won two Emmy Awards and brought Rock widespread fame and critical acclaim. Riding the crest of his newfound popularity, Rock went on to star in the television series The Chris Rock Show (1997–2000), write the best-selling book Rock This! (1997), costar in the film Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), and provide the voice for Rodney the guinea pig in another Murphy movie, Dr. Dolittle (1998).

In 1999 Rock starred in his third HBO comedy special, Bigger and Blacker, and then appeared in a series of films, including Nurse Betty (2000) and Down to Earth (2001). In 2001 he provided the voice of the title character in the animated movie Osmosis Jones. He later starred opposite Anthony Hopkins in the thriller Bad Company (2002). In 2003 Rock made his directorial debut with Head of State, which centred on a presidential election. After the popular HBO comedy special Never Scared (2004), he cocreated a television series based on his childhood, Everybody Hates Chris (2005–09). The show was a critical and commercial success. Rock hosted the Academy Awards ceremony in 2005.

Rock’s subsequent films included The Longest Yard (2005), in which he starred with Adam Sandler, and the animated Madagascar series (2005, 2008, and 2012), for which he provided the voice of a zebra. In 2007 he starred in I Think I Love My Wife, a remake of Eric Rohmer’s L’Amour l’après-midi (1972; Chloe in the Afternoon) that he also cowrote and directed. Two years later Rock investigated the hairstyles of African American women in the documentary Good Hair. He next appeared in Death at a Funeral (2010), a comedy about a chaotic funeral, and Grown Ups (2010), in which he, Sandler, and several other comedians played high-school friends reuniting as adults; a sequel followed in 2013.

In 2011 Rock made his Broadway debut in The Motherf**ker with the Hat, as the title was rendered on programs and marquees, portraying an AA sponsor. The following year he had a role in the film What to Expect When You’re Expecting, an ensemble comedy about parenting, and starred opposite actress and filmmaker Julie Delpy in her culture-clash comedy 2 Days in New York. Rock then wrote, directed, and starred in Top Five (2014), about a comedian struggling to transition to more serious fare. The film was lauded for successfully situating Rock’s cutting humour in a moving and believable narrative. In 2018 he appeared in the comedies The Week Of, which also starred Sandler, and Nobody’s Fool. That year the comedy special Chris Rock: Tamborine debuted on Netflix. He then played a 1950s mob boss in season four (2020) of the TV anthology series Fargo. In Spiral (2021), part of the Saw horror film series, Rock was cast as a detective investigating a series of grisly murders. He later appeared in David O. Russell’s Amsterdam, a screwball mystery in which he played a World War I veteran.

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In 2016 Rock returned as host of the Oscars ceremony, which had drawn calls for a boycott when Blacks failed to receive any nominations in the acting categories. Rock was widely praised for his handling of the controversy, which he addressed throughout the show, notably devoting his opening monologue to the issue of racism. He was a presenter at the 2022 ceremony, and his appearance made news after a joke about actress Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair offended her husband, actor Will Smith. The latter walked onto the stage and slapped Rock, then swore at the comedian as he returned to his seat; shortly thereafter Smith won the Oscar for best actor. He later apologized to Rock.