By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There: A Memoir

by Tom Sizemore

  Almost as soon as I got back to New York I had to go to Los Angeles. I was willing to go to L.A. as much as I needed to—I didn’t care where my acting career happened as long as it happened—but Edie was dead set against leaving New York. And that’s when Edie and I began having problems. We were young and I was away a lot. And even though I ultimately fell in love with her, I was never all the way in emotionally. I just don’t think I had fully recovered from Michelle.

  But suddenly the work was coming, and it was coming fast. I did a movie called Rude Awakening and then Lock Up, which introduced me to both Stallone and Mickey Rourke. Mickey’s talent just blew me away. When I had seen him in Diner I realized there was someone in movies who was doing things that had never been done before. And when we met I think we bonded over the fact that neither of us was quite right. There was also something very charismatic about him; he was Marlon Brando and didn’t know it. Everything about him was interesting: the way he walked—he had that pigeon-toed walk—and the way he looked and the sweetness he had underneath it all. Mickey and I are both weird. He’s had four dogs, all named Loki, and when each one dies, he names the next one that. I think we both want to talk to each other more, but we’re both chickens. He likes to talk to whichever Loki is around, and I like to talk to books.

  Anyway, I made seventy-five thousand dollars on Lock Up, and I took the money I was supposed to use for a hotel stay and instead moved into the Oakwood—a furnished-apartment complex between Burbank and Hollywood, which is usually filled with child actors who are trying to get their big break—because it only cost eight hundred dollars a month. That meant I pocketed another forty thousand in per diem. I was very conscious back then about how much I needed to get by—I think I was still paranoid after hearing that you could never get another apartment once you got evicted in New York. I did not want to go back to waiting tables.

  Stallone really liked me. He was the first big star I ever met, and I have to say I’ve still never met anyone better adjusted to stardom. He’s a good father, has been with the same woman, his wife, Jennifer Flavin, for nearly twenty-five years, and is simply the nicest guy you could meet. He basically decided I was a good actor and took me over to Creative Artists Agency (CAA), where he introduced me to Ron Meyer, who was one of the founders. Ron then took me over to meet with Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane. At the time, they were just kids my age but they ended up becoming the “Young Turks” along with Richard Lovett, who sort of ran that group, and Jay Maloney, who, tragically, ended up killing himself. I could tell that they were brutally ambitious—like me.

  I’d always known I was ambitious, but this was around when I realized just how competitive I was. My attitude about auditioning became: If you beat me today, I’m going to come back tomorrow and beat you. The fact of the matter is that if you can imagine yourself being anything else but an actor, then you should be doing that other thing. Acting has to be your calling because regardless of how successful you are or how soon you get that success, you’re going to have times when there’s something you want that you’re not going to get, no matter who you are. And that hurts. Because you’re not selling Girl Scout cookies. You’re selling you. So if you don’t get the job—well, you can obfuscate it with all kinds of bullshit if you want to, but it’s a personal rejection. It’s the most personal kind of rejection. So you have to have a very thick skin and a very deep belief in yourself to get through that. I developed a system around this time, which was to let myself grieve for the twenty-four hours after I didn’t get something, then say, “Fuck it” and move on.

  One of the starring roles I got early on was in a movie called A Matter of Degrees, written by Randy Poster, whose sister, Meryl Poster, was already a bigwig at Miramax and who had gone to Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, where we were shooting, with John F. Kennedy Jr. Now, my family was completely obsessed with the Kennedys, so when someone told me that Randy was friends with John, I didn’t believe it. I asked Randy and he said it was true, then offered to call him to prove it. So he called up John-John and handed the phone to me. That’s when I heard this voice that was unmistakably his say, “I understand you don’t actually believe I’m Randy’s friend. Well, I’ll prove it to you because I’m going to be on the set tomorrow, doing a scene where I play the guitar and have one line.”

  I guess John-John did a play at Brown, and his mother, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, came to see it, but she told him afterward, “I do not approve of you doing this because it is not a serious pursuit—in the memory of your father and your uncle Bobby, I don’t want you to go through your public life as a pretender.” But he agreed to take this tiny, one-line role in the movie not only because he was friends with Randy but also because his girlfriend at the time, Christina Haag, was in it.

  When John got to the set, I was standing at an elevator by myself wearing my costume, which was a pair of overalls because I played a guy who restores cars. I heard a banging noise getting closer down the hall behind me and as I turned around I said, “Who’s the cripple?” And there was John-John, hobbling up on crutches because he’d hurt his leg in a skiing accident and had just had knee surgery. He had a big smile on his face and said, “Are you referring to me? That’s not very nice, Tom.”

  It blew my mind, first, that it was him, and second, that he knew my name. I was sort of speechless but he just added, “You should be careful before you go around shouting things like that; one day you might say it to an actual cripple and that might be uncomfortable.” I just stood there, nodding sort of dumbly. I had pressed the button on the elevator, but no light went on so I just assumed it was broken, but then John reached out with his crutch and pressed it and the light suddenly flicked on. I remember thinking, “He’s so magnetic that he has the ability to make broken elevators work.” He was extremely nice and we became good friends.

  When he reached his arm out with his crutch, it was the most built arm I’d ever seen, and I thought to myself, “I want my arm to look like that.” He told me that he didn’t much go to the gym. “I go to the gym to use the steam room,” he said. “New York City’s my gym.” He explained that he’d Rollerblade or skateboard to Central Park and then play football or Frisbee there and do chin-ups on buildings that he passed where they were doing construction. It sounds silly, but that really inspired me, and I started doing a workout routine where I throw a football against a wall outside; it’s a routine I keep up to this day.

  Randy came over and said, “What’d I tell you? Now do you believe me?” and the three of us just laughed. John shot the scene where he played guitar and then later he watched me do a scene. And we actually hung out a little after that: I played football with him in Central Park a few times and went out to dinner with him and his friends. One night he invited me out with people who were involved in his magazine, George. I felt uncomfortable, because I didn’t really fit in or know what they were talking about, and he just suddenly said to everyone, “Hey, let’s stop talking about George because it’s got to be boring for Tom.” He was that kind of a guy: he was very compassionate and had the sort of presence that naturally made people want to follow. I have to admit that meeting and befriending him was incredibly exciting. It might sound ridiculous but it was one of the best things that happened to me when I first started out as an actor. I was devastated when he died; he was a remarkable man.

  This is around when I signed with a manager named Suzan Bymel. She was friends with a filmmaker named Jill Goldman, who was putting together her first movie, a romantic drama titled Love Is Like That (later changed to Bad Love). I was basically told, “Hey, Jill Goldman’s really rich, and if you go through the rehearsal process for the movie, she’ll foot the bill for you to live at the Chateau Marmont while you shoot it.” So I went through the rehearsal process, she did end up putting me up at the Chateau, and the movie became one of my favorite roles of all time. I played this passionate loser named Lenny who falls for this girl when she comes into the gas station where he’s work
ing. They have money problems, as well as relationship problems, and they end up scheming to rob a fading movie star the woman works for. It was a small movie, but I loved playing a romantic lead—especially opposite Pamela Gidley, who was a big model at the time. While I was shooting Love Is Like That I landed a recurring role in the CBS drama China Beach—which starred Dana Delaney and was about a U.S. military hospital during the Vietnam War, and in which Dana Delaney played the head nurse—as Sergeant Vinnie Ventresca, a wounded sergeant from Brooklyn who handles the mine-sniffing dogs.

  Around then, Bryan Lourd basically said to me, “I need you to be in L.A. now for work.” And my attitude was “Great—I’ll be there next week.” The way I looked at it was this: I had worked my ass off for ten years to get opportunities, and now that I was going to be getting some, I didn’t want to miss a single one. I think Edie was miffed by how easily I made the decision to leave New York, but a real decision is when you weigh one possibility against another and this was no decision: I just said yes, knowing it was the right thing to do. Even though Edie and I had a huge fight about the whole thing, she helped me pack and even agreed to ship the stuff I couldn’t take with me. (However, I realized I’d be leaving her with literally nothing if I took the bed and the couch and all the rest of the furniture, so I ended up just taking my books.)

  First I went to Chicago to make a movie called Watch It, and then, on May 1, 1991, I moved to L.A., into an apartment on Harratt Street in West Hollywood. I really liked my driver on Watch It, a guy named Scott Silver, and he was always talking about how he wanted to be a screenwriter. So I told him that if he wanted to move out to L.A., he could live with me. On set, I also became better friends with John McGinley. The two of us would joke about how I lived in a Hollywood mansion. I think Scott really believed that that was what he was going to be moving into when he decided to come out, but it was just a two-bedroom condo. Scott enrolled in the American Film Institute and lived with me the whole time. He ended up making it as a screenwriter, too; in 2011, he was nominated for an Oscar for his script for The Fighter.

  I didn’t like L.A. all that much but L.A. was liking me. I suddenly had a million dollars to burn. But I was pretty careful with it. I wanted to get a Porsche, for example, but instead I got a Mustang—though I did end up later getting a Porsche. I have never cared all that much about things—possessions—although sometimes I get a little superstitious. For instance, I had this certain pair of jeans that I was wearing when I got my first job, and so I started to believe that I had to wear them on every audition or job meeting I went to or else I wouldn’t get the part. This pair of jeans got to be disgusting—completely ripped up and tattered—and I seriously looked like some kind of a grunge kid in them. But I kept wearing them.

  It was getting to the point that before I’d even finish a job, I had another one, and in a way I never had time to really sit down and think about what was happening. I did a small comedic role in Point Break and played a bank president in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man—my second time working with Mickey Rourke.

  The amazing thing is that I wasn’t being pigeonholed at all. I was being used for both drama and comedy and I could go from playing a romantic lead in Love Is Like That to playing a gay serial killer in Where Sleeping Dogs Lie, with Sharon Stone. But it’s not like I was getting everything I tried out for. I auditioned some six times for the part of Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs. It came down to Steve Buscemi or me, and they wanted me to go to Sundance in Colorado and workshop it before they’d even cast me. Obviously they cast Buscemi.

  What I remember above all from that period is that on every movie, the director would pull me aside for dinner or a talk and tell me that I should be aware that I had an incredible ability, and that I should never lose sight of it because I could become one of the greatest actors who ever lived. But I never dwelled on those things; I didn’t know how to handle hearing something like that. So I’d just go on to the next project.

  CHAPTER 3

  MAKING IT

  ONE OF MY FIRST leading roles was in a movie called Passenger 57, but honestly, what was most memorable about that entire experience was that it introduced me to Elizabeth Hurley. I remember when I first saw her, four days into the movie, at the table read in Orlando, Florida: I’d never seen a girl that beautiful in my life. She had stunningly flawless ivory skin, a beautiful voice, and a charming throaty laugh.

  Wesley Snipes, whom I’d known for a long time and was one of the stars of the film, saw her at the same time. He looked at me and said, “You can have the black girl,” meaning the actress who was playing the other stewardess. I saw that he might be serious about hitting on Elizabeth so right then I walked across the room to where Elizabeth was at a table getting a brownie or something. I started to introduce myself to her and she said, “I know who you are.” I think I stammered out, “What?” And she said, “I’m in room 219 and you’re in room 119. It’s on the cast list.”

  I said something like “I have to apologize but I’m kind of a neophyte when it comes to talking to women as beautiful as you.” And she said, “A neophyte? I love you.” I laughed and said, “It’s that easy?” and she said, “I’m sorry, I meant that I love the fact that you know the word neophyte.” I laughed and asked her to dinner, explaining that I was a neophyte at that, too.

  Later that night, we went to an Italian restaurant in central Florida, then went back to her room and drank wine and listened to the Beatles; we just kind of cuddled and sang the songs to each other and hung out, and then I went home. I didn’t even try to kiss her. I felt like she was just too pretty to kiss. To me, her beauty blocked everything out. It was actually really unhealthy because I let her beauty keep me in a subordinate position. I literally couldn’t conceal my awe or worshipful feelings for her.

  The next day she came by my room and said, “Come on, we’re going to get some magazines and books.” We drove to a Borders, and she bought Madame Bovary and a bunch of other books; I was impressed. That night we went back to her hotel room, which had a little kitchenette, and she made roasted chicken with green beans and broke out two bottles of wine. I think I was in love by the time I had my second glass. Then she went into the bedroom and came out in lingerie that would make her later outfits in the Austin Powers movies seem tame, and she got on the coffee table and stripped. And it was a goddamn good routine, too. She knew what she was doing because in the middle of it she looked at me and asked, “Is it too bright for you?” And then she got down and dimmed the lights and got back up and started dancing to the song again.

  I was twenty-six, which means that I had a hard-on if someone attractive breathed heavily across the room. So I could have hit Roger Clemens’s fastball with my dick at that point. And after she was done with her routine, she sat on top of me and we had sex on the couch. Then we went to the bedroom and did it again. It was wonderful. Usually when you make love to somebody for the first time, you see the potential but because one of you is a little nervous, it isn’t all that it can be. This was spectacular from the beginning.

  I essentially moved into her room for the rest of the shoot and after the movie wrapped, we went back to L.A. And that’s when I found out that she already had a boyfriend back in England: Hugh Grant. He hadn’t done Four Weddings and a Funeral yet, and I didn’t know who he was—I just figured he was some out-of-work British actor. Little did I know that everyone knew he was going to be a movie star any minute and he was Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown’s best friend. Once I found out about him, Elizabeth started being honest with me about it. I’d be at her place and she’d say, “Hugh is coming in nine days; when do you think you should start taking your things out?” I’d get tearful and not let her see it. I just loved her. I didn’t see other girls, didn’t talk about other girls—I was completely enraptured and in her world. But then Hugh would come to town and I’d say to my friends, “I’m done, I don’t have to deal with this, I can go out with this other girl who likes me,” but I could never d
o it. I’d make dates with people when he was there, but I never kept them.

  It hurts me to say this because she was never really mine, but in many ways Elizabeth was the seminal relationship of my young adulthood. She taught me a lot about myself. She taught me that I wasn’t who I thought I was. I’d always thought I was the kind of person who’d never take that kind of treatment from a girl, and what I learned is that I’ll take a lot of things from a girl if I love her, and in fact I’ll take too much. I really lost myself in Elizabeth Hurley. I didn’t do what was best for me. I blew off an audition once just to drive her to the airport when she didn’t have a ride.

  Eventually I was able to get out of my relationship with Elizabeth but I never really got over her—I just moved on out of emotional necessity. I even ended up dating a friend of hers years later—a British socialite named Linda Evans who lived in the same house with Elizabeth, where all these young actor guys would hang out: people like Gary Oldman and Robert Downey Jr. and a boxer and model named Gary Stretch.

  The last time Elizabeth and I saw each other romantically was heartbreaking; I called her up and said, “I can’t do this anymore.” We went to walk her dog, right after Hugh had left town for the thirteenth time in the three years we were together. I was sitting in her car afterward and I just started crying and she said, “Don’t cry. Let’s walk the dog.” She didn’t like tears—no Brits do. They’ve been bombed by the Nazis: they’re tough motherfuckers. She said, “Tom, I’m begging you, please, stop it—I feel bad enough.”

  She never meant to hurt me; it was just one of those situations. You have to be very mature and sophisticated when handling the intricacies of two people and you throw in a third person; throw in the word love, too, and it can be very complicated for somebody who’s the object of affection for two different men. And I have to say, Hugh Grant is a wonderful guy. He’s truly gifted and also a kind, soft-spoken, humble man. I always liked him, but I’ve grown to love him for the way he’s taken on the wiretapping situation in England. He’s a guy who does the right thing. Except, of course, in the case of Divine Brown. And look, I get it: he likes having his cock sucked by different people. So do I. He just should have done it at home. But my point is that in the end, Elizabeth’s loyalty was to Hugh.