Let’s return to the movie. I was slightly surprised to hear that you don’t have anything that bad to say about Hollywood, given the content of the film, which to me was about how hard and hurtful to an artist’s soul Hollywood can be. So what were the themes that you were interested in exploring in “Misty Green?” I’m really into expiration dates. Everybody tells you that you can do art forever, and that’s just not true. In show business, you’ve got to reach certain plateaus by a certain time or else you’re going to be in trouble. So Misty is turning 40, and it’s a little bit of an expiration date happening. But, yeah, I wanted to do a movie about Hollywood. I wanted to do a movie about L.A. It’s this tale of two cities. Sunshine and palm trees, but we’re constantly walking over homeless people — the most liberal people in the world. Rodeo Drive and Skid Row are in the same city, probably eight, 10 miles apart. In a lot of ways, America’s like that: very rich, very poor. We live in a world where either you order [expletive] or you deliver [expletive], and you really don’t want to deliver [expletive], you know?
What should your response to that disparity be? So, the running title of the book that I’m writing right now is “When the Homeless Know Your Name.” Because when the homeless know your name, you feel that. Somebody asks you for money on the street, they just ask you for the money. When they ask me, they say, “Yo, Chris!” I don’t know what I should do. First of all, who the hell carries cash anymore? You give what you can.
I want to dig into that feeling a bit more. When the homeless know your name, what do you feel? Put it this way: I get up around 7. I get coffee by about 7:15. I go to my supermarket, get some fruit, and inevitably there’s always a bunch of guys setting up for the day. Did you ever see “12 Years a Slave” or any slave movie with a free slave? The slaves look at Chiwetel [Ejiofor]. He’s dressed all cool and he got his hat and they’re just looking at him like: “How the [expletive] did this happen? We’re the same.” That’s me at the supermarket in the morning. They’re looking at me, not even as a famous person, just like, “Who’s this brother buying mango at 7:25 in the morning?” Because there are no Black dudes living in SoHo. Am I answering your question?
Yeah. You’ve seen behind the veil. Yeah, and it’s like, they’re looking at me, and I’m looking at them, because I know I could be that. I know if I don’t walk into a comedy club in ’84 or ’83, I’d probably have a normal job. I’d have a lovely life, by the way. I’m not one of these guys who thinks that if I didn’t find comedy, I’d be in jail. No, I’d work for Amazon and I’d have a wife and some kids and I’d be OK. I’d be the funny guy on the Amazon route.
It’s interesting that you’re writing a book because I remember, before the pandemic, there was an announcement that you were working on a book about interracial relationships. What happened there? The book never showed up. I’m not trying to be like a gangster or anything. When you’re writing something about race, especially in this era of everybody taking everything out of context — I just didn’t feel like everything I was saying to the publisher, they were listening. I was like, I don’t trust these people. So I gave the money back.