‘I guess it’s about how each crime – the Italians, the Irish and now it’s the black gangsters. So is it, at heart, the story of 20th-century American race relations and racism? ‘Ah, yeah, I guess so,’ Rock replies slowly. As Cannon, Rock challenges the boss of the Italians, saying, ‘You think part of being American is standing on my neck.’ They’re vying for power with the local Mafia, who previously fought the Irish mob, who, in turn, had fought Jewish gangsters. Rock plays Loy Cannon, leader of a black crime syndicate. This series is set in the earliest era yet, with events taking place in Kansas City in 1950. Each of the crime drama’s series is set in the Midwest in a different decade. Supported by Jessie Buckley, Jason Schwartzman and Ben Whishaw, Rock is top of the bill in the fourth instalment of the show, which creator Noah Hawley spun out of Joel and Ethan Coen’s Oscar-winning 1996 film. Perhaps even more impressive is Rock’s starring role in the new series of Channel 4’s Fargo. Chris found a very similar balance in this movie.’ This is a very crude example, but in the first Beverly Hills Cop movie, Eddie Murphy has this incredible ability to go from talking about his friend who has just died to making a joke, to leaning into something very emotional. ‘Chris’s performance is very multi-faceted. ‘You say it’s a very dramatic role, but I don’t think it’s any one thing,’ Minghella tells me over the phone. And to get a little bit of humour into this horror doesn’t feel derivative.’ But doing a cop movie with a horror, I thought, OK, that’s an original twist on it. Well, Richard Pryor never did one,’ he adds of one of his heroes. Chris Tucker’s got Rush Hour, Eddie Murphy’s got Beverly Hills Cop, Kevin Hart’s got Ride Along, Martin Lawrence did Blue Streak. ‘It’s almost a rite of passage for the comedian, especially the black comedian, to do the cop movie. He’s also a producer and star of Spiral, the ninth instalment in the billion-dollar-grossing Saw horror franchise in which he and Max Minghella (The Handmaid’s Tale) play detectives investigating an elaborately inventive psychopathic cop killer. He’s not long finished shooting the as-yet-untitled latest movie from David O Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle), alongside a typically rich ensemble from the director that includes Christian Bale, Robert De Niro and Margot Robbie. After successfully transitioning from the New York comedy stage to Hollywood comedy movies, Rock is now winning heavyweight dramatic roles. The high-octane Rock who brilliantly, witheringly, hilariously skewers race, racism, relationships, police brutality and societal inequity? He hasn’t showed up today. And I’m starting to get really good offers.’ So I guess there’s a little weight there I didn’t have as a younger guy. Sometimes you just have to live real life. ‘I’m in my 50s, I’m a father with two kids, I’ve been divorced. ‘Yeah, I’m ageing into good parts,’ he says of the reinvention of Chris Rock. Taken together with the glasses, the sombre messaging reads: at the age of 56, one of the highest-earning American funny men, with 5.2 million Twitter followers, four Emmys and three Grammys, the two-time Academy Awards host and recipient of a rumoured $40 million Netflix deal is going serious. Rock is speaking from his apartment in Manhattan, and is wearing a black sweatshirt by Californian streetwear brand Undefeated. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth,’ he says. With his thick-framed black glasses the star best known here for blockbuster comedy specials like HBO’s Bring the Pain (1996) and Kill the Messenger (2008), and the voice of Marty, the zebra in the Madagascar films, Rock looks like a stylish middle-aged academic. ‘How do I look? I can’t even tell… I need a shave,’ Chris Rock says, rubbing a lean jaw snowed with greying stubble, as his laptop camera switches on. Even drained of the energy and octave-leaping animation familiar from stand-up stage, awards-show podium and cartoon franchise, it’s instantly recognisable. ‘Is this it?’ comes a disembodied voice from a blank computer window.
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