Oprah Winfrey Shares Broadway Dreams With Motherf**ker Star Chris Rock

As the second most frequent guest in the history of The Oprah Winfrey Show (Celine Dion holds the record), Motherf**ker With the Hat star Chris Rock is accustomed to chatting about his career with the talk show queen. Winfrey recently turned the tables, telling Rock that she has always wanted to act on Broadway. The newly minted stage leading man not only encourages Winfrey to pursue her dream, he says he’ll be her co-star! "Please, I want you to do it,” Rock says. “You'll be a different person. I hope I'm in it—I'll do it."

Rock explains to Winfrey that his personal road to Broadway began after seeing Denzel Washington’s Tony-winning performance in Fences last season. "When you watch Denzel, it's like watching Moses,” Rock says. “It's like watching Spider-Man—a real, live superhero in an unbelievable feat. At that moment, I told the producer Scott Rudin, 'If you find me a script, I will do it. I really want to do it. I want to be involved in an ensemble; I don't want it to just be about me. I want it to be about the play and the work.' And they gave me this script, and I read it, and I was like, 'Wow, I'll do that one.'"

During a backstage tour of the Schoenfeld Theatre, Rock takes a crew from Oprah through the “not that glamorous” prop room and shows off the reading material (from Jonathan Franzen to the Bible) in his dressing room. He praises the benefits of stage acting, telling Winfrey, "You're going to grow as an actress because you're going to play with these emotions. You're going to do it in so many different ways. Almost every night, you're going to be another person."