TORONTO – Chris Rock draws laughs when he admits that he “likes a messy woman.” Casting for one in a movie can be serious business.
For his new drama “Misty Green,” a sharp satire of the Hollywood industry that’s both dark and comic, Rock needed to find someone to play a volatile, self-sabotaging former A-lister who needs to get her mind and life right to get her career back on track. And he found his perfect Misty in British actress Rosalind Eleazar, a likely best actress contender at next year's Academy Awards.
“I like to make things that I haven’t seen,” Rock said after the Sept. 12 world premiere of “Misty Green” (in theaters Oct. 9) – his first writing and directing effort since 2014’s “Top Five” – at Toronto International Film Festival.
“Even silly movies like ‘CB4,’ I haven’t seen it, so let’s make it.”
Eleazar was “so overwhelmed” when she first read Rock’s script, she said. “It was such an honest and raw take on the dark side of our industry. I fell in love with Misty. She’s such a complex and contradictory and fluid character, and I’m drawn to characters who are difficult to love.”
The actress admitted she was “really desperate” for the role, “so I did whatever I could. Normal things! Just like Zooms and stuff,” Eleazar added with a laugh.
Rock said Misty was hard to cast because “it's a very risqué part.” The comedian and filmmaker pointed out that “Anora” star Mikey Madison won the best actress Oscar earlier this year for playing a sex worker, and “it would be hard to cast that part because everybody doesn't want to be a stripper. Everybody doesn't want to hump this guy on a couch. Rosalind was more than down …”
“I was down,” Eleazar chimed in, getting a laugh from Rock.
“I know she's a lovely lady and demure tonight, but you have these meetings and you have to think to yourself, OK, is she going to smoke the cigarette in her underwear on the balcony?” Rock added. “Is she going to get on the floor and fight for the money? Because on the day, you can just say you're not doing it and what am I going to do?”
Instead, “Rosalind goes too far. There was nudity that we cut out. It was like, ’Rosalind, put your clothes on,’ ” Rock quipped.
The filmmaker pulled from his own life as an entertainer for the “Misty Green” narrative.
“When I was a younger comedian working in Vegas a lot, you do your shows and then at night, you hang out with strippers and hookers and magicians,” Rock said. “That was your life.”
As time went on, “occasionally, I would bump into women I knew from ’90-whenever and a couple of times they were like the mistress of some really famous guy or some rich guy. Those were the ones who did well – the ones who were still alive.”
At the premiere, the cast hailed his view of show business. “Everything in the script about Hollywood is closer to the way it is than the way I've seen in the movies,” said Topher Grace, who plays Misty’s agent in “Misty Green.” His costar Amy Landecker added that Rock is “dead on” with “how humiliating they can make you feel on any given day.”
Rock also tackled Hollywood but in more lighthearted fashion in “Top Five.” Now at age 61, he’s just "in a different place in life,” he said.
“I'm more open just as a person. I read more, I write more,” Rock explained. “I just realized there's more work behind me in front of me. So it's like, I'm just getting it in, man. You might see a tap-dance musical from me next. I'm just being in it like Tupac. I hope I don't get shot. I'm writing like I’m about to get shot.”
Ultimately, “I’m going deeper as a person,” he concluded. “Somebody said to me, ‘Oh, you’re a better director.’ I’m like, ‘No, I'm a better person.’ ”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rosalind Eleazar crushes 'risqué' role as Chris Rock's 'Misty Green'
