Chris Rock says the wealth and homelessness sitting side by side in Los Angeles inspired his new movie, about a world where “either you order shit or you deliver shit.”
Rock built Misty Green around a once-promising actress whose career and housing unravel over about a week in Los Angeles. The movie grew out of his frustration with the wealth and homelessness that exist so close together.
“I wanted to do a movie about LA and it is like this tale of two cities,” Rock told interviewer David Marchese in an interview published October 3, 2026. “It is sunshine and palm trees, but we’re constantly walking over homeless people.”
He pointed to Rodeo Drive and Skid Row, estimating they were “probably eight, ten miles apart.” The luxury shopping stretch is actually in Beverly Hills, a separate city from Los Angeles, where Skid Row sits. His larger point extended beyond Southern California: “In a lot of ways, America is like that. You know, very rich, very poor.”
The disparity has a measurable scale. For a single night in January 2026, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimated that 73,040 people were homeless across Los Angeles County, including 45,194 within the city.
Asked what to do about that divide, Rock said, “I don’t know what I should do,” and “You give what you can.”
Rosalind Eleazar plays Misty in the film, which Rock wrote, directed, produced and acts in. It opened in U.S. theaters October 9; an October 21 report said it would arrive on Netflix November 9.
