Chris Rock's "mock" inaugural address

Chris Rock

In his new movie, he plays a presidential candidate -- that's all the movie publicity you're going to get. Instead, we pit the red-hot comic against CNN's Paul Begala, a political analyst who's not afraid to ask the tough questions.

Interview by Paul Begala

Rock makes his directorial debut with "Head of State" (PG-13), which opens next Friday.

No one ever told Chris Rock he could grow up to be president when he was a boy in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. But he dreamed of it anyway. "Nobody told me that," he says without bitterness. "Ever. Seriously. It's weird. I wanted to be president. My mother said, 'You're not. No way.' People were getting shot in the head because of the civil rights movement, and I suppose my mother didn't want to hear her little kid to say he wants to be president. Not her little black kid. She was thinking: 'Do something. Drive a truck. Be a lawyer. But don't have one of these shot-in-the-head jobs.' "

Through the magic of Hollywood, Chris Rock's boyhood dream is about to come true. He's the star of a new satire, "Head of State", in which a presidential hopeful and his running mate are suddenly killed. No prominent candidate wants to take on the other party's can't-lose nominee, so the Powers That Be turn to a little-known D.C. councilman, Mays Gilliam (Rock). Gilliam is from the side of Washington the tourists don't see. Raised on hip-hop, he identifies with disenfranchised urban youth, a new type of player entering the political game.

Making the movie was "the epitome of fun," says Tamala Jones, who plays Lisa, the candidate's girlfriend. With Bernie Mac playing Gilliam's brother and running mate, "Head of State" builds the kind of fired-up, spontaneous energy you just don't get from your average political rally. Jones says: "Chris and Bernie have a chemistry we haven't seen since Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin."

A movie about the campaign of the first black president couldn't come at a more pivotal time. Lately it seems race is a factor in every story coming out of Washington. This is a period of national soul-searching over the legacy of slavery, which former senator Bill Bradley has called America's "original sin." Then there are Sen. Trent Lott's recent remarks that if America had elected then-segregationist Strom Thurmond president, maybe we wouldn't have "all these problems" today.

And President Bush, who won just 9% of the black vote, recently called for an end to the University of Michigan's race-conscious admissions policy.

As I sat down to talk with Rock, our nation was being led toward war in part by two African Americans: national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell, a man Rock believes could have been elected chief executive in 1996. "I watched the State of the Union," Rock says. "They've been giving the same speech for 30 years. It's the same s---."

Politics, the saying goes, is simply show business for ugly people. The egos, the insecurity, the phoniness. You could take half the weasels out of Washington and trade them for half the weasels in Hollywood, and nobody would miss a beat. When asked what he would change, though, Rock dodges. "I don't know. Taxes?" he answers coolly. "I don't know."

Rock is sitting in a fancy four-star restaurant in Beverly Hills. He's in town putting the finishing touches on "Head of State", which he also co-wrote and directed. He's also fighting a vicious sinus attack while enduring press interviews with an active but wary mind. You can almost see the wheels spinning under his Yankees cap. And they're spinning fast.

In his stand-up act, Rock comes across as an outraged but extremely astute social critic capable of drawing refreshingly original conclusions on everything from gun control to prayer in schools. But on this particular afternoon he came off cagey and careful enough to be a career politician. Most of the time, he seemed to be answering questions with one eye on the tape recorder. He had surprisingly little to say about the issues of the day: universal health care ("It's never gonna happen"), welfare reform ("I don't know what I'd do"), Al Sharpton's announcement that he'll run for president ("Well, hopefully people can hear what he has to say. But do I think he has a chance of winning? No.").

When pressed about Bush's stance against affirmative action and how someone who, in my opinion, has clearly benefited from his daddy's name and wealth -- like getting into Andover, Yale and Harvard with middling grades, and then the National Guard, to stay out of Vietnam -- could take such a stance, Rock was still. Perhaps he was thinking about the wisdom of attacking our popular leader as his film is launched.

This is not the Rock who fearlessly attacks icons. He has been the best stand-up of the last decade, broaching issues -- sometimes with dead-on hilarious observations -- that most comedians wouldn't touch with a 10-foot mic stand. "What the hell is wrong with these white kids shooting up the school?" he asked in 1999's "Bigger & Blacker", delivered just a few months after 13 were killed at Columbine. "The Trenchcoat Mafia?!" he says, mockingly. " 'No one would play with us,' " he whines. " 'We had no friends.' Hey, I saw the yearbook picture. It was six of 'em! I didn't have six friends in high school. I don't have six friends now! That's 3-on-3 with a half-court."

Rock has never been afraid to riff about hard truths or to target politicians. In the past, he's taken shots at everyone from Marion Barry to Orrin Hatch. One reason for that artistic freedom, Rock says, is the self-imposed distance he keeps between himself and his subjects. For years, Rock says, he turned down invitations to the White House when Bill Clinton was president because he wasn't sure he could continue to do his audacious bit on the Clinton-Lewinsky mess. "I always thought if I met any of these guys I'd go easy on them," he says. "If I'd met Clinton, I would've never done that routine. It's just mean." Since then, Rock has "hung around with Mr. Clinton" a few times. "I wish he'd enter the presidential primaries," Clinton tells me. "It would guarantee a huge audience for the debates, though I'd pity the other candidates."

Rock is like a lot of politicians. He's come further than anyone expected, and now that he's made it, he's careful not to slip up. He knows how far he could fall. "If I were to apply for a job today, my skills would deem me worthy of the minimum wage," he says with absolute sincerity. "I'd maybe have a Class 3 license to drive a truck. If you take show business off the plate, I'm a busboy."

The question is, will Rock, at 38, become like the politicians he lampoons -- so concerned with maintaining his place at the top that he stops taking the risks that got him there?

Rock's climb to stardom was swift, but not without bumps. After being "discovered" by Eddie Murphy at a Manhattan comedy club, Rock landed a three-year stint on "Saturday Night Live". But he struggled to find his voice -- and to manage his money. With just $50,000 in the bank, he bought a $40,000 Corvette and was $2,000 in the hole after insuring it.

Then came "Bring the Pain" in 1996. The Emmy-winning stand-up showcased Rock's brash material about race, religion and relationships, and his characteristic relentless energy. Rock was different from most comics, who would gradually build to the punch line. He was more like a prizefighter hitting you with multiple combinations. After a really funny bit, he'd slam his fist into an open palm. Almost overnight, he became the country's hottest comic. A best seller, two comedy albums, a series of Nike spots and his own weekly talk show on HBO followed. The only thing that eluded him, and does to this day, is a blockbuster movie. "CB4", his 1993 gangsta-rap spoof, tanked; even rappers dissed it in their songs. In 2001, "Down to Earth" didn't exactly soar either. "Head of State" could change all that. For one thing, it appears to be tailor-cut for Rock. It lives on the DMZ between black and white America, between public service and phony politics. But most of all, it's "silly." That's something Rock desperately wants to stress.

"I'm not Mort Sahl," he says, with respects to the '50s political satirist. "This movie's not "Bulworth". It's not "The American President". You're not gonna get diatribes. You're gonna get nuggets of truth and wisdom, I hope. But this movie's about jokes. And if you watched my show, yeah, we interviewed J.C. Watts [the black Republican congressman, now retired] and talked politics, but the show was about the comedy, my stand-up's about the comedy, and this movie's about the comedy. I come to joke."

So he does. But the jokes wouldn't be funny without the ring of truth, like his routine about Social Security. "You don't get the money till you're 65; meanwhile, the average black man dies at 54. We don't live that long," he observes. "Hypertension, high blood pressure, NYPD -- something'll get you!"

He pulls a raggedy, folded-over piece of paper out of his wallet. On the top of the page are the words "New S---" in big letters. It is filled margin-to-margin with scribbled ideas. Rock peruses it. "Look at Iraq. It's so messed up, if you dropped bombs you just might make buildings." Going through this list is how Rock came up with one of "Head of State"'s signature lines, delivered by his character's opponent: "God bless America, and nowhere else!"

"It feels that way," he says. "It's like, God has obviously blessed America. So the way for America to feel safe is for God to start blessing other parts of the world. You're always going to be at war with people who have less than you. They're never gonna be happy till they're where you are and you're where they are. That's it in a nutshell."

Having worked for President Clinton and watched a whole lot of other presidents as a political consultant and now a commentator, I've come to realize the most important quality in a president is empathy. Whether it was Reagan identifying with the families of the Challenger astronauts in the '80s, Clinton feeling the pain of AIDS patients in the '90s or Bush throwing his arm around a firefighter at Ground Zero, Americans want their president to be in touch with their lives. They want their president to be like them ... only better.

Chris Rock is like us ... only funnier. Part of his appeal is his ability to think like ordinary people, the ones Clinton calls "walkin'-around folks." He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Malaak -- who gives makeovers and teaches interviewing skills to welfare moms applying for their first jobs -- and their 9-month-old daughter. Despite all his success, he is still someone who relates to the conundrum of child care. In "Head of State", his character bemoans how people end up working only to earn just enough to pay a sitter, who in turn pays someone else to watch her kids, and so on.

The bit came to Rock after watching the "army of maids and gardeners" march every morning into the gated community where he lived while filming a previous movie. "It makes me sad," he says. "When I see a nanny, I think: She's probably got her own kids. And the comment you hear a lot is, 'Well, they're making more than they could in their own country.' The people who say that don't look at blacks, Mexicans, whatever, as equal on any level. They think, 'That could never be me, so it's great that they're making this little bit of money.' "

Rock will often build new material around such trenchant observations. From there, he decides what to riff about, working it out onstage. "I liken myself to Oprah," he says. "I'm gonna take the high road, talk about stuff that's interesting. So even if you don't think I'm funny, I'm not boring you." W

Paul Begala, a co-host of CNN's Crossfire, is a professor of public policy at Georgetown University. As counselor to President Clinton, he helped define and defend the administration's agenda.

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My fellow Americans ...

Drawing on his experience as an adviser to President Clinton, Paul Begala worked with Rock and "Head of State" co-writer Ali LeRoi to draft a mock inaugural address that the movie's hero could deliver:

After a campaign that began in tragedy and ended in triumph, I am ready to be your president.

The question is: Are you ready to be Americans?

I traveled all across this country, and you know what? We're getting awfully boring, America. Duluth used to be different from Dallas; St. Louis was nothing like St. Paul. But now we've become so homogenized you can't tell Alabama from Alaska. Every town's got a Pizza Hut and a Sunglass Hut.

How 'bout an Originality Hut?

We've all got Gap and Banana Republic and three Starbucks. How 'bout a cup of coffee that doesn't take five minutes to order and $5 to pay for it?

We need fewer chains and more change.

All through the campaign, I talked about what ain't right about America: People working in hotels who can't afford to stay there -- that ain't right. Nurses working in hospitals they can't afford to get sick in -- that ain't right. Folks working in malls they can't afford to shop in -- that ain't right.

And now you expect me to fix it?

Man, that really ain't right.

You've got to do this yourselves, folks. Abraham Lincoln said the fate of this country is in your hands, not his. Then you went and started a Civil War. Well, the fate of the country is still in your hands. It's your job to set right what ain't right. I can yell "Fire!" But I can't carry the hose by myself.

I'm not saying we have to change everything overnight. Most things in this country work really well no matter who's the president. And no matter what I do these next four years, Harlem's still going to be Harlem, and Beverly Hills is still going to be Beverly Hills.

But maybe, just maybe, the gap won't be as great. Maybe, just maybe, America will be a place where everybody has the same opportunity -- instead of just the same chain stores.