Chris Rock has ‘fired staffers that have not listened to women’
Chris Rock says that he has fired staffers who have not listened to women.
“I was like, ‘How come he’s not doing… And then I realize, ‘Oh, [it’s because a woman asked him to do it],” he told Nicole Kidman, who was interviewing him for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series.
The 56-year-old Brooklyn comedian credits women for helping him in the early stages of his career, and when Kidman asked why he thinks it’s important to listen to women, he said, “I don’t know, maybe my mother. When I started out as a comedian, women like Joy Behar and Susie Essman put me under their wing.”
“I don’t know,” he added, “I have just always been around powerful women. Even in comedy, the clubs were run by women. Comedy Store was Mitzi Shore in L.A. and the most powerful [woman] in New York was Silver Friedman [the wife of Improv Club owner Budd Freidman].”
He adds, “Everybody talks about how stand-up is a boys’ club, but stand-up’s been run by a lot of women for a lot of years.”
Both actors also expressed their love for iconic comedian Lucille Ball and the difficulties she must have faced as a woman.
Elsewhere in the interview — in an exchange about Kidman’s height (she’s 5’11”) — the Aussie actress told Rock, “So many men don’t want to work with a tall woman,” to which Rock replied, “I love a tall woman. Bring them on. The taller, the better.”
Rocks latest film premiered “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” starring Samuel L. Jackson and Max Minghella last month.