Polished Rock

With his new film, “I Think I Love My Wife,” Chris Rock has done something that would’ve been hard to imagine back when he was primarily known for his “Saturday Night Live” skits or stand-up comedy act:

He’s gone and made an African-American version of a Woody Allen movie.

Yo, Chris, what happened to your edge?

“I was only edgy compared to other things. It wasn’t like I was ever sitting here going, ‘I’m going to be edgy!’ ” says Rock, 42.

“I hope I get softer,” he continues. “Hey, man, Prince is singing at the Super Bowl. Hopefully, you evolve. I can’t be the guy I was 20 years ago.”

It’s a surprising sentiment coming from Rock, but the guy is full of surprises. Who knew, for instance, that he was a big foreign film fan?

Rock was in the mood for foreign films one day and bought 10 or 15 of them, including one with a naked woman on the cover – Frenchman Eric Rohmer’s 1972 movie “Chloe in the Afternoon,” about a married man who becomes distracted by another woman, with somewhat surprising results.

“I watched the movie, and I loved it,” he says. “I loved what it stood for, I loved the misdirect. I love movies where you think you’re watching one thing and then the ending comes and you realize you’re watching something totally different.”

After Rock had fellow comic Louis C.K. watch the film, and he had the same reaction, “we both thought, thinking like comedians, that we could get a lot of comedy in here. We thought it was like a house with no furniture, like there were a lot of jokes that could go in here.”

The result is “I Think I Love My Wife,” an updating of Rohmer’s film that opens in theaters today. Rock directed, produced and stars, in addition to sharing a screenwriting credit with Louis C.K.

Rock feels the theme of what once used to be known as the “seven-year itch” is pretty much universal.

“We’re all bored. I’m an entertainer, I bore easy,” he says.

“I definitely relate to the character. I’ve been married 10 years, I have two kids, I live in the suburbs, I commute into the city, all that stuff. It stops there pretty much.”

Rock keeps an office in his native Brooklyn, but lives in New Jersey with his wife of 10 years, Malaak, and their two children. Stories circulated last November that Rock’s marriage was on the rocks, which he denies vehemently.

“It’s all rumor,” he says. “We know Britney (Spears) cut her hair, but it’s a rumor that she’s crazy. You cut your hair; you’re not crazy, right?”

Starring as Rock’s wife in the movie is Gina Torres, but more important to the story is the character of Nikki Tru, a needy spitfire who waltzes into Rock’s life and then refuses to leave. He chose Kerry Washington (“Ray,” “The Last King of Scotland”) for the part.

“I think there’s certain people out there, as soon as you hear their name or see their face you assume the movie’s going to be bad, so I had to eliminate them, get them off the list,” Rock says.

“After I’d gotten rid of all the usual suspects I wanted the best actress, and Kerry’s the best actress by far, and she’s gorgeous. She’s sneaky fine.”

Washington says she was intrigued to see “a seductress written by two men, two comedians, to be so insightful about herself. One of the reasons I was really drawn to this character is because she had surprising depth to me on the page.”

Indeed, the character of Nikki is by turns sympathetic and difficult to like.

“Even though she is to me kind of the Tasmanian devil of the movie – she whirls in and disturbs everything around her and is totally not conscious of her process – at the same time to me she’s really a victim of a society that tells women your worth is in your objectification,” Washington says.

Since moving into movies, Rock’s success has been sketchy at best; titles like “Down to Earth,” “Bad Company” and “Head of State” haven’t exactly turned the industry on its ear (and let’s not forget “Pootie Tang”).

The 30-year-old Washington, meanwhile, has quickly built another kind of reputation in Hollywood.

“The new rumor is that if you cast me as your wife you win an Oscar,” she jokes, noting that it worked for Jamie Fox in “Ray” and Forrest Whitaker in “Scotland.”

“I’m hoping that’s true for Chris as well,” she says.

Washington agrees that “I Think I Love My Wife” is a new direction for Rock.

“To me it feels like old-school Woody Allen or old-school Spike Lee, which I think is super-exciting,” she says.

Rock cautions that he’s “no Woody Allen, living on the East Side of Manhattan.” But he’s flattered by the comparison.

“Hopefully, I can build on this. I don’t want to go back,” he says.

“I think I’m funniest as a real guy, that’s the discovery I made through this movie. Most guys play guys who won’t grow up. I think my comedy comes from being a grown-up.”