He quickly narrowed his focus to one man, one singular moment.
“This is a long time coming,” Bell tells EW.
And a lot of big names among themConan O’Brien,Ava DuVernay,Martin Lawrence, andOprah!
Larry Marano/REX/Shutterstock
sat down to discuss Rock’s provocative and critical look at race in America, tackling the O.J.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What makes you the right guy to tell this story?
I was like, “I’ve never directed anything.”
He’s like, “You’ll figure it out.”
I put a lot of this on her.
She really helped me not go down the wrong path for too long and also respected my vision.
When it was asked, “Do you want to direct a documentary about comedy?”
So this is a long time coming.
Oh, so the fact that this focuses solely on Chris was your idea?
[Laughs] That was basically my pitch.
But then it became, well, can we get Chris?
And I hadn’t really talked to Chris much sinceTotally Biasedhad ended, but we were still friendly.
She was like, “Oh, I’ve never talked about how much I like Chris!”
It truly opened a lot of doors for us just because nobody had done it before.
What was your No.
1 burning question aboutBring the Pain?
So I knew that joke had to be one of the last things written.
What up, Cleveland?"
You watched him re-watch the special what was that like for you?
Right, he says, “It’s like another person did it.
I guess another persondiddo it.”
He was like, “How can I say something that I haven’t said before?
Cultureshock: Chris Rock’s “Bring the Pain"airs tonight at 10 p.m.
ET on A&E.
