Ali LeRoi Quotations

We started looking for someone in L.A., and what we found was that we were encountering the usual suspects. They're Hollywood kids who have been in the business for a few years. We were looking for someone who was a little raw and a little edgier. And we got a tape from New York with this kid on it. The thing that sold us was his face. He has an incredibly expressive face, and it's older than his years. When you sit and you look at him, it already feels like he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He looks like his eyes are a little sad, but he's really bright. At this particular point, there's no Hollywood in him.

Usually, funny people aren't in charge of comedy. Comedy has become commerce. They're just trying to duplicate a thing that they can sell. That's the business. I'm not mad at that. You know, cookie companies do the same thing. But all the cookies aren't good cookies. Mrs. Fields is better than a lot of them.

We're finding these little things that turn into something. He's going to go to school, he's going to meet people, he's going to run into problems, Dad's going to try to pay the bills, Mom's going to try to get along, keep these kids on the straight and narrow. That's pretty much the show.

He had a really great energy and really expressive face. He just had a lot of natural expression in him.

I think the thing that makes this show entertaining is that we don't pander at all. We don't assume the audience is stupid, and we're not trying to trick them with anything fancy. We're just trying to tell decent stories, deliver the best jokes we know how. And we're not trying to dazzle them with B.S.

My wife told him it was just a TV show and to ignore it. It worked. He believes her. Kids trust their parents that way.

We're really not responsible for any of this. We went into a room. We came up with an idea. We did it the best way we knew how to do it, and this is what happened.

Unfortunately, people tend to see it as a black show because there are black characters. But it's easier to jump those lines of race now. There's a viewing audience that watches because it's a family show and it's funny.

We were just trying to cast a great kid that kind of embodied the idea of the character. A young kid who kind of felt put upon, who wasn't too cocky and who was a little unsure of himself.

UPN is getting behind it. They're putting in everything they have in terms of support. That's good. You'd rather have that than no support. The downside is, you don't want to believe the hype.

We're trying to build stories that come from smaller things. There's one show where Chris gets into trouble because his sister wants to make a cup of hot chocolate, but she almost burns the house down. It's just about hot chocolate. There's another show where he gets upset with the girl next door because he finds out she likes his little brother more than she likes him. It's little, simple things.

Everybody Hates Chris is a semi-autobiographical show. We try to get humor out of tough subject matters. It never occurred to me what a 6-year-old would think about the subject of Santa.

Everybody Hates Chris' is a semi-autobiographical show. We try to get humor out of tough subject matters. It never occurred to me what a 6-year-old would think about the subject of Santa.

They've been dying to get him on camera.

A comedian knows how to twist a phrase and make a face and fall over a chair or whatever they have to do to get that laugh, that's what they know how to do. That's what Chris Rock does in voiceover.

It's Chris Rock. He separates our show from all the other shows that use that device.

There's this idea that people don't see color, and that's a lie. It's about appreciating it, instead of pretending that it's not there.

If you listen to his comedy ... it's serious stuff. There's war, there's racism, there's fights, there's violence, there's arguments. And then you find the joke in it.

You will recognize different pieces of Chris Rock material that you've heard before.