"Top Five" actor and director Chris Rock on "black fame"

Chris Rock on "Top Five," comedy and race

In his new film, "Top Five," Chris Rock said he wanted to create a movie about "black fame."

"'Cause being famous as a black guy is a little different than being famous as a white guy," Rock said to "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose. "Tom Hanks is an amazing actor. Denzel Washington is a god to his people. OK?"

Rock said Washington had a different responsibility than actors like Tom Cruise or Liam Neeson.

"They just make their art, and no one goes, 'Hey, Tom Cruise ... Stay white. Don't forget your whiteness.' It's, 'Come back and visit the white people.' 'How-- what you doing for white people, Tom Cruise?' Nobody says that to Tom Cruise," Rock said.

Rock said for actors like Washington, black people need to know "that Denzel loves his people."

"That Denzel is doing stuff for his people. And they feel Denzel's highs and lows more than white people feel. [If] Tom Hanks does a bad movie, there's going to be another good movie by somebody white next week ... Denzel does a bad movie, I might not see a good black movie for a year. I am really left out here hangin'."

Rock said he felt that himself "a little bit" when he was writing and making his movie, "Top Five."

He wanted to make a "Chris Rock movie," like how Adam Sandler would make an "Adam Sandler movie."

"With men ... we always get our fashion sense from whatever friend gets laid the most ... 'Okay, that haircut seems to work for him. I think get that haircut,'" Rock said. "And so Sandler's like my biggest movie star friend. It's like, 'Okay, I'll just do what he's doing.' But it didn't kind of fit me. You know what I mean?"

He said even an Eddie Murphy movie wouldn't be his tone.

"And this movie, the important thing was I found a tone that works for me," Rock said.

Rock said stand-up will always be at the core of his life.

"I like it. I really like it. I kind of love it," he said.

According to Charlie Rose, Seinfeld once said Rock can handle comedy on race better than anybody else because of his approach to getting people to the truth of race in America.

"Maybe. I mean, I'm from that era," Rock said. "I was bussed to school in 1973. OK? I mean, think of it this way. The Triborough Bridge has been the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge for about 20 years. We still call it the Triborough Bridge. So when you pass a law it takes, like, 20 years before -- even though it's illegal to do certain things, it takes, like, 20 years or 30 years for people to, like, really get acclimated to things. So yeah, I got bussed to school. I was called [the n-word] all the time, you know, by students, teachers, janitors. So I know it. I really, really, really, really know it."

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