The comedian Chris Rock has picked up some early awards buzz for his performance in the fourth season of the FX anthology series "Fargo," but he said he almost turned it down for the same reason he turned down offers to star in "The Sopranos" in the 1990s: He was afraid of ruining the show.
"Sometimes you can respect something so much, you don't even want to be a part of it," Rock said during The Hollywood Reporter's awards roundtable.
"Years ago, when I had my own show on HBO, it was at the height of 'The Sopranos,' and I got a couple of offers to be on 'The Sopranos' and I was like, 'I like it too much, I don't want to spoil it,'" he said.
But Rock said he was such a fan of "Fargo" that he "took the meeting anyway" and got an offer from Noah Hawley, the show's creator.
"He presents me with this offer, and I'm like, 'Whatever you want me to do, I'm down.' Because I saw how he handled Bokeem Woodbine," Rock said.
"Sometimes people do amazing work and then when they handle Black people, it's horrible," Rock said, adding that with Hawley, "I saw how he handled Bokeem and I was like, 'I can totally be in your hands.'"
He added: "Once you see that, you go, 'OK, this guy [Hawley] has no problem putting himself in that character's shoes.'"
Rock said that often the people who give notes about a script's structure and characters struggle to imagine themselves in the shoes of Black characters.
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