Actors Anonymous (6 page)

Inside, the place was in shadow, and I made my way across the wood floor toward the back rooms. Bree had a roommate who slept across the hall from her. I was about to see Bree, my love, and I was going to make something happen. I pushed open her door, and there she was on the bed beneath a thick white comforter. Her eyes flickered, and then she jerked up into a sitting position. That’s when I knew that something was off.

“Hey, it’s me,” I whispered.

“Jerry, what are you doing here?”

“Um, I brought you this.” I handed her the rose.

She didn’t say anything. She was hunched up against the headboard beneath her comforter.

“I miss you,” I said.

She said nothing.

“You must be tired,” I said.

“Jerry, how did you get in here?”

“I climbed onto your roof and then swung down onto your balcony.” It was all different when I said it out loud.

“I’m sorry I didn’t show up for coffee,” she said. “I have to get up at five-thirty.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said, talking as if I was very calm and nothing was wrong. “I just wanted to see you.”

“Jerry, you can’t just break into my apartment.”

“I didn’t break in. I love you.”

She said “Jesus,” but it was quiet.

“Have you ever loved anyone?” I said.

“Jerry, stop.”

“No, I wonder if you have ever really loved someone so that you feel like you want to be a better person because of that person? You are so amazing, so amazing, that I just want to be the best person I can be when I am around you.”

“Jerry, if you’re in love you don’t break into someone’s house.”

“I didn’t
break
in. And Romeo did.”

“
What?
”

“Broke into Juliet’s place. Nothing, never mind, I just want to be with you. I want to be the best actor I can be, and you make me a better actor and a better person when I’m around you. I am sorry that your stupid agent didn’t like me, but I know that I’m good;
you
know that I’m good. I’m like Sean Penn. I’m really good, right? Isn’t that what you told me?”

“Jerry, you have to go.”

“What, you don’t think I’m good now? The fucking gay guy said that I am going to be bigger than Brad Pitt. I know it was because he wanted to kiss me, but still, everyone can see—can’t you see? Everyone can see that I’m going to be great!” I was talking loudly and getting closer to Bree. Then her roommate came in.

“You better get the fuck out of here,” the roommate said. “I just called the police.” She looked like hell with her curly hair sticking out all over the place.

“The police? What the fuck, what? I’m just…”

“Get the fuck out of here, Jerry,” said the ugly roommate. “I’m serious.”

I turned back to Bree. “Bree, you’re not scared, are you?”

“Jerry, go,” said Bree. She couldn’t even look at me.

The roommate said, “You broke the rules, motherfucker. Now get the fuck out of here.
Now
.”

I stared at the frizzy-haired roommate for a long time. She stared back, real hard.

“Don’t you know who I’m going to be?” I said.

“I don’t care if you’re JFK,” she said. “If you don’t get out of here I’m going to tell the cops to shoot you.”

I walked out of the room, then through the dark living room. I unlocked the front door, which was difficult in the dark. I took my time. I didn’t care if the cops got me. Maybe they would shoot me and all would be better.

“Get out, moron!” said the roommate. And then the door was open and I was outside. It was cold again and when I closed the door behind me I knew my life was over.

In class that week we did an improvisation for our scene from
Sexual Perversity in Chicago
by David Mamet. I was too young for the role, but it was a cool scene about picking up girls. I did it with my scene partner, Ben, the bartender in real life:

“So, last night, how’d it go?” he said.

“Sheeeit.”

“Wha?”

“I said, ‘sheeeeeeit.’”

“I heard you. For real?”

“For double fucking real.”

“Don’t bullshit,” he said.

“No bullshit.”

“So tell me. And no bullshit.”

“So tits like melons, no bullshit.”

“No shit?”

“No shit, and an ass—momma.”

“A momma ass?”

“No, an ass like butter. An ass like candy.”

“An ass like
that?”

“An ass like an onion, bring a tear to your eye.”

“Holy…”

“Holy fucking shit is right. And young.”

“Like…”

“Like eighteen, twenty.”

“Motha-fucka.”

“What?”

“MOTHA-fucka! You’re a beast.”

“Sheeeeit, you think she’s a virgin?”

“Ain’t no virgin, hungh?”

“Puleeeeease.”

“Little slut, hungh?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Big slut?”

“Sheeeeeit, her fucking
name
was Slut. Slut Mackenzie.”

The scene went on. Bree wasn’t there. I didn’t think about her or anyone else. There was no use.

STEP 3

Turned our will and our “performances” over to the Great Director.

The Great Director

T
HAT
’
S THE BIG QUESTION
:
Who is the Great Director?

If you want, I will be your director.

But if you don’t want me, then you need to realize that there is always a director. Even when you’re a director, there is a director of the director.

Directors nowadays are trying to serve the public taste. The taste is changing. As it always does, and the directors and studios try to cater to that taste.

Movies are dying, right?

But they’ve always been dying. When were they not dying?

Movies still make tons of money.

Video games, Internet, YouTube, shit like that. It’s taking over. But television was the same way when it came around.

Movies. I guess that’s what we’re talking about. Movies. But when we think of movies, we think in terms of feature-length films: ninety minutes to three hours. That’s how we conceptualize movies.

What about the movie of your entire life? Boring or exciting? Good scenes?

In the movie of your entire life, do you want drama and conflict or a straight shot to the top, unencumbered?

In the movie of your entire life, is there a soundtrack? It must change over the years, yes?

How about the cast of players? That changes too? A great big cast, yes? I hope so. I hope there are some good actors in there.

Now, in the movie of your entire life, do you want to be happy? That’s not that interesting for other people to watch. Just saying.

Who is the cinematographer? Is the cinematography dark and moody? Fast and bright? Video or film?

Is there a lot of action in your film? Comedy? Are we laughing at you or with you? Are you in control of the comedy or its victim? Who is your foil?

Who are the villains in your film? Do they get punished? Are you the one to punish them?

What role do you play in other people’s films? Are you the comic relief? The villain? The mysterious lover? The femme fatale? The father of the bastard?

It’s nice to think of your life as a film because then it just feels like play-acting. That the consequences are insubstantial, as they are when your camera eye pulls out far enough. If we’re watching your life from space, your personal dramas don’t mean much.

Who is directing your film? I mean, really?

Who are you acting for? Who is guiding your performance? It is very hard to act and direct at the same time. I’ve done it a bunch of times, but I always depended on others for help when I did so. Friends.

Does your film end tragically? You probably don’t know. Can’t control it. Maybe you could if the character committed suicide.

I knew a young woman whose grandmother committed legal suicide in Europe. She was sick of life.

My grandmother is full of life at age ninety because she is vitalized by my career. All of her friends are jealous that I’m her grandson.

Even the friend who is the mother of Judith Butler.

Actually,
especially
the mother of Judith Butler.

Movies and entertainment dominate. That’s all there is. They rule the world.

I guess they are dependent on a stable country, but when we have that, there is nothing more influential than popular entertainment.

Maybe when things are unstable, entertainment is just as influential. A nice escape, they say. But if your life is in entertainment, is it an escape? And if everyone just watches videos now, aren’t the videos life, and real life is the escape?

It’s safe to say that entertainment
is
life.

Do you differentiate your life from your art? Sometimes it’s best to.

It’s great to read
Hamlet,
but you probably wouldn’t want to
be
Hamlet, or even hang out with him.

Horatio. What a good guy. Like Razumikhin is to Raskolnikov, he is to Hamlet. In life, it’s better to be Horatio and Razumikhin; in art it’s better to be Hamlet and Raskolnikov.

When I was in fifth grade, I copied down the character lists from all the Shakespeare plays.

I wanted to own all those characters. It was an attempt to encompass all of Shakespeare.

I had the same impulse in seventh grade, when I wanted to draw a
diagram of all the people at my junior high and how they were all socially connected, all the cliques and shit.

These were two early attempts to make sense of both my artistic world and my social world.

Both worlds are made up of people. Even abstract art has a human creator.

Art is given different definitions at different times, but those definitions will be destroyed.

My director? The poet Frank Bidart.

Read Frank’s poem, “Advice to the Players.” It talks about all of this, about the human need to create.

Fuck business. Fuck money. Fuck fame. Fuck coolness.

I am in a great position. I
can
say fuck all of those things because I am a famous actor and because I
have
money and I can do whatever I want (within a range) and I will look cool.

But I still say fuck it all.

My work is my life and my life is my work. And something like this—this book—is totally free of the pressures of being popular, because I don’t make my living off of books, I make my living off of acting.

Always have one artistic thing that is pure, at least one thing, where you don’t compromise. You can do other things to make money, but have one pure area.

Now, being pure doesn’t mean that you don’t listen to others’ opinions or don’t listen to your director (whether he be actual or in your mind), but it means that you listen for the right reasons: for artistic purity, not for reasons of money or popularity.

But there is also something to be said for being successful for the sake of being successful, or getting rich for the sake of getting rich, or being famous. Maybe in the end, this is all there is.

But I would prefer a nation of artists than a nation of businessmen.

This is how they get the kids to go to Wall Street: The banks recruit at the top Ivy League schools. They make it seem like Wall Street is the next step in the elitist rise up the ladder. The young Ivy Leaguers want to continue their dominance, so they join the ranks of rats.

Business. It’s all business. Culture is business. Art is business. They call it the
movie
business for a reason.

Here’s the new game, or the same old game (French New Wave): Get one over on them while still playing their games. Make movies that fit into their system but also subvert their system.

That’s the best way to go. Just don’t let yourself become Disneyfied or Hollywoodified or indiefied or dramafied or comedyified.

Sometimes you can get into a situation where you can be the actor in some pieces, the director in others, and the writer in others. Sometimes you can be all at once, but that is usually not the most fun. Unless you’re Charlie Chaplin.

Or Woody Allen.

Must be nice to control your whole world the way Woody does. His whole world is his movies, his music, and everything he loves. He’s brought everything he loves around him.

Create your world around your work. Create your work around your life. Let other people help you shape it.

The film lovers and the crazies: Sometimes they’re the same people.

Some people love the characters, and some people love the actors behind the characters.

Sometimes the characters take on attributes of the actors; sometimes the actors take away attributes of their characters into their own lives.

John Wayne became a cowboy because he played so many. He grew up in Glendale.

The Marlboro Man probably thought of himself as a cowboy.

If a real cowboy posed for a Marlboro ad, he’d be a phony, no?

You need to be able to take on all roles and laugh at all roles. To be able to mock the role you’re playing
while
you’re playing it.

You also need love. Your characters need to love something, otherwise they will be unlovable.

That’s one of the big secrets. Make your characters interested in
something
. Striving for something. In need of something. Good at something. This will make them likeable and interesting.