Chris Rock jokes on marriage in life, new film

Gina Torres and Chris Rock in a scene from 'I Think I Love My Wife' in an image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chris Rock's new film detailing the frustrations and temptations of married life strangely reflects persistent rumors his real-life marriage is in trouble.

But even after such scrutiny in life and fiction, one of America's most popular comedians says he is no marital expert.

"I know nothing about marriage," Rock told Reuters recently in an interview for his cinematic look at modern matrimony, "I Think I Love My Wife," which opened Friday in the United States.

Rock, 42, dismissed media reports from late last year that he was filing for divorce as "all rumors, I am happy." His 10-year marriage succeeds due to being tactful, he said.

"I know it helps if you are wrong all the time and when you are right, just say you are wrong," he joked. "It helps to smooth things over. That is pretty much it. Just be wrong."

In his new romantic comedy, a lighthearted remake of the 1972 acclaimed French film "Chloe in the Afternoon," Rock plays a successful investment banker devoted to his wife and two kids -- who is sexually tempted by an attractive female friend.

It is his second directing effort and displays the same humor that helped him rise through the comedy circuit ranks in the 1980s to a film and television career using comedy that pokes fun at both romance and class.

"I just wanted to do a grown up movie," he said. "It's an adult topic."

The film is Rock's first since "Madagascar" and "The Longest Yard" with Adam Sandler in 2005, the same year Rock hosted the Academy Awards, a gig he described as a "hard job."

His abrasive style of poking fun at U.S. race relations and success has led to comparisons with fellow black comedians Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, who initially recommended Rock for the TV show "Saturday Night Live" after seeing his stand-up routine.

'MY REALITY'

But Rock, who was raised in Brooklyn and lives in New Jersey, said such comparisons were difficult as "race was so different for Richard (Pryor), he came up at a different time. Eddie (Murphy) came up at a different time ... so, racial, I don't know."

He joked the current state of U.S. race relations was average -- "well, they are not hanging anybody, so I guess it's OK," -- and said he uses that humor because "it's just my reality."

"It is just the weird world I live in," he said, commenting on a scene in the film which sends up the lack of black Americans in his character's firm and corporate America. "The reality is, I went to one of these brokerage houses and there were two black guys out of 800 people, like six out of 5000, wow!"

His comedy sought to poke fun at his own life rather than deliberately crossing racial barriers, he said.

"Look at James Brown, what's blacker than James Brown? There was no real effort to cross over into a wider audience," he said. "If you do anything good, everybody will buy it."

Above all, Rock said, he wanted to be remembered for making people laugh.

"If they say something else, that is just the gravy, you can't take for granted that people are even going to say you are funny."