Chris Rock has said he has no plans to attend the Oscars again after Will Smith slapped him onstage. That is, unless he’s nominated.
The comedian shared his take on the awards show in an interview with Variety to promote his new movie, Misty Green. Rock both wrote and directed the movie, which stars Rosalind Eleazar, Anna Kendrick, Adam Driver, and Daniel Kaluuya, and will hit theaters Oct. 9 after its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next week.
He doesn’t believe that the project will be his first Oscar nod, however.
That would be the only way he would ever again appear at the annual ceremony where Will Smith slapped him in the face on live television, over a quip he made on stage about the actor’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
“I’m not getting nominated. The only way I’ll go back is if I’m nominated, and I’m not getting nominated,” he said. “And that’s OK.”
Rock added, “We’ll deal with that if it happens. Like, let’s manage expectations.”
That said, Rock still seems to be processing the aftermath of the bizarre moment four years later, as he pointed out in his interview.
When the interviewer pointed out that Rock “made a movie about a woman who smacks her colleague, where you play a character that has to decide whether to forgive her,” Rock replied, “You know, I never even thought about it like that,” saying it was “literally the first time” the connection was made for him.
“I wish nothing would have happened,” Rock went on. “And also, I don’t want to say anything that takes any attention away from Rosalind and how good she is in this movie. It’s a crazy world. We walk by homeless people. There’s all sorts of s--t going on right now.”
The slap, which he described as his “having a bad day,” is “not the biggest—it’s not that important.”
“Showbiz has been very, very good to me. In a world where we have trillionaires—I don’t have that much money—but my dad got sick when I was poor, and my mother got sick when I had some money,” he said. The difference, he added, was so uncanny it cemented his gratitude. “Dad’s dead. My mom’s doing great. You know what I mean? It’s literally that simple,” he said. “So I’m good. I’m really good.”
As for a potential return to host the awards show again following his 2005 and 2016 stints, Rock was coy last year, telling E! News, “You never know.” He didn’t rule out the possibility again, but added a caveat this time around. “They have great hosts. Conan O’Brien is amazing. Nikki Glaser is amazing on the Golden Globes. I’m not going to say never, but my time might have passed, honestly.”
