On being a child star and adapting to life

I was really lucky to always work without really getting known at a young age for a particular role. I think that's what keep me from being labeled a 'child star'. I was 22 before the audience seemed to know me by name, and it was a cumulative effect over the several years I'd been working. As far as adapting, I've had the benefit of being witness to all the careers of everyone in my field since I was a child. So I got to see people do it right and wrong, over thirty years. It's shown me areas to avoid, or offered me cautionary tales of how to lose it all. Mostly, I love the work. I truly enjoy making movies and shows, and I simply work very hard. I believe we all deserve to be treated well,...

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I guess winning the Golden Globes for The Office in 2004 against all odds started it all. When I went up to collect the first award, Clint Eastwood was overheard to say "Who the fuck is that?" (*Haha, I so hope that's true).
I'd say it's even-steven between my comedy stuff and Breaking Bad. Which is pretty amazing because I've been doing comedy for 20+ years and BB for 3. But BB is the biggest thing I've been involved with, by far. The interesting thing to me is that there is often an either-or aspect to it, people who like me in BB have no idea I've ever done anything funny...but I guess that doesn't mean they haven't seen me doing comedy.
Everybody's really nice to me. And there's been so many times when a stranger has suddenly said "holy shit it's Dan Harmon" or "by the way I didn't want to freak you out earlier but I'm a big fan of your work" that I now get to assume, just as a mental exercise, that at least one person in any room I enter is a fan, which makes me feel confident and also puts me on my best behavior because this theoretical "fan" is watching and I don't want them to think I'm a bad person. So on one hand, achieving notoriety is definitely surreal in that it's nothing like reality, but on the other hand, all it really does is make reality the way reality should be for every single individual. And I've been kin...
Some people actually sit with me and that sometimes drives me crazy, when I'm at a dinner, but no one seems to realize when I'm in a booth having dinner, and then they just sit down and start talking, and I go "ooh." But I can't even almost get myself to say anything mean, because they all mean well, it's the worst thing, and if they're drunk, drunks are tough to deal with, because they're your #1 fan until you finally ask them to leave. Then not only do they hate you but they want to beat you up. So when they come up and they are tentative, and say "can I get a picture or autograph" and you say "yes," they are reading you, they are getting feedback, and you say "yes," and then they say "Can...
My brother was in Fiji, and he walked by a hut that had some like, it was a cave, and it said it showed movies in there and it said "This week: Tommy Boy." And he's 6,000 miles away, and someone asked if he wanted to see Tommy Boy and he said no.
Okay. That's Chris Tucker. I'm Chris Rock. BUT... you know... sneezes I never hung out with Jackie Chan. I'm a big fan of the Rush Hour movies, and me and Chris Tucker get confused with each other all the time, and it's the first thing we talk about when we bump into each other.
It's funny, I'm a fairly private person. So being in the public eye, I often feel like people know too much about me already. But I also like to live my life as open book and try to be transparent and authentic with people, so I try not to over think it. There's no one thing I wish more people knew about me, other than the fact that I am a trained ninja and often go on secret missions for the government. But that's top secret.