But in the case of “The Press vs. T. L. Jones,” all his ridiculous theatrics, rude behavior, and general contempt toward the press have made them turn on him. For the huge blockbusters he appears in, a lack of press support is of marginal importance, but on personal passion projects and small movies he’s directed, where press support is essential … it’s a room full of crickets. Nobody cares. The press finally figured out that interviewing Tommy Lee Jones is like fucking a toaster! You go in all wide-eyed and curious. Inevitably, you get trapped and scared. The only way out is to use your tears as lubrication. And as sexy as that sounds, I think you’d agree that it’s just a little too much look! We’ll pass. What goes around, Mr. Jones …
Nobody warned me about Bruce Willis before I went in, and nobody apologized for his behavior after. They just left me standing there shit-struck! So I was stuck in a vacuum of self-loathing. All I kept thinking was that I sucked at my job and I shouldn’t be doing it. I had insulted my idol by making a stupid joke, by being myself, and in the snap of a finger, everything derailed. I wasn’t good enough. A month after Bruce walked out on me, the whole Tony the Tiger mentality was out the fucking window. I couldn’t hold in all the pain and feelings of worthlessness anymore.
Insecurity is a silent and invisible monster. A lurking shadow mocking you at every turn. A crime of opportunity patiently waiting for its next victim. It creeps into your mind the instant your guard is down: while you’re sitting at a traffic light staring into the distance, ignoring its routinely changing colors punctuated by the rising cacophony of car horns. It slithers down into your heart the second the tears begin to well up in your eyes: when you’re at work alone at your desk picking yourself apart as you force yourself to watch your own interviews to make sure you’ve made a mental note of every flaw. It permeates your soul at the break of dawn after you’ve lain in bed awake all night, numb to the sore and swollen aftermath of convulsing lament. I was suffocating with inadequacy while I choked on the fumes of a career that was burning down around me. Powerless against its grip, alone and isolated, I gently began to fade. I was emotionally compromised and on the verge of a mental breakdown. It was not a question of if, it was a question of when, and sure enough, the timing didn’t disappoint.
I had to cover the junket for the mockumentary A Mighty Wind, a synonym for a fart. Should have been a piece of cake for me, right? As Kourosh drove me to the interview at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, we started going over my questions, and I went to an uh-oh SpaghettiOs place in my head.
We’d heard that writer/director Christopher Guest could be on the unfriendly side and a bit more than intimidating. And that you had to be on your A-game to keep up with his cast of genius improv actors, like Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. These people are too fucking good at what they do, I thought. And they take what they do very seriously. They’re going to eat me alive.
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. The pressure of failing again was more than I could handle.
“Stop the car!” I screamed. “I’m not going!”
Kourosh looked at me like I had two heads, and I proceeded to have a nuclear meltdown that was, on a scale of one to ten—Chernobyl.
“You cannot make me do this!” I shrieked at the top of my lungs. “I can’t do it! I just can’t!”
I was crying uglier than Rose Byrne in Bridesmaids—I’d now graduated to rejected Bachelor contestant—and punching the car window with my elbow. Makeup, spit, and snot rolled down my face. It wasn’t exactly a good look. There was no way I could be on camera, but we had to show up. Kourosh—unshaven, in sweats and a T-shirt—left me in the car, walked into the hotel, and did the interviews.
I was done. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I didn’t want to be in front of the camera or the stars. After that breakdown, I stopped doing interviews completely. I stayed in the dark edit bay and out of sight. Kourosh would periodically come and gently ask me if I was ready to come back. I’d say nope. I was happy being an editor holed up in a dark room all by myself.
I’d never been a quitter—except for one time in my life. When I was eleven, I took gymnastics classes. I really loved gymnastics. One day after practice where I was learning how to do a backflip off of the uneven bars, my mom came by to pick me up to go to my dad’s birthday party. I was super tired from the umpteen times I’d practiced this flip but so excited to show her my new skill so we could tell Dad what I did. I got up on the bars, swung myself to a standing position on the lower bar, and did a glorious backflip. While I was in the air I felt my body contort from exhaustion, but I couldn’t correct it in time to stick the landing. My feet slipped on the mat. One leg jackknifed and an arm waved about as I tried to catch myself before my ass kissed the ground. I broke my wrist in two places.
We spent the next several hours in the emergency room, and my dad missed his own birthday party. Not only was I a terrible gymnast, but I was a terrible daughter. I felt so guilty and defeated. Do you think I wanted to try another backflip ever again? Nope. After that, I hated gymnastics. I couldn’t even watch the Olympics without having flashbacks. Then, in 1996, that little fireplug Kerri Strug showed me the light. On her first attempt on the vault, she fell and hurt her ankle. Did she give up? Hell no! She limped down the runway then stuck the landing on her second vault on one leg, ensuring a gold medal for the United States and the cover of the Wheaties box. I bet her dad was proud.
Listen, I still never did another backflip off the bars ever again in my life, and I don’t intend to in the future. But that’s my choice. I’m the decider. Bruce Willis doesn’t get to make any decisions about my life.
After months of hiding out in my cave, eating Doritos and ice cream and watching zit-popping videos on YouTube, I was sick of feeling sorry for myself. And to be honest, I was sick to my stomach! I intimated to Kourosh that I longed for the good ol’ days of cussing it up with everybody. If this was a movie, you’d now see a montage of me studying The Big Black Book of Very Dirty Words, drinking raw eggs, and running up hotel front steps like Rocky Balboa. But it isn’t a movie; it’s a book. So you’ll just have to picture it in your head. For the record, I’ve asked Sly about the raw egg thing. He says it’s gross.
Kourosh knew that to be eased back in, I’d need to interview someone sweet and warm, the equivalent of a mug of hot chocolate. So he booked me on The Rundown junket, which starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Before I left he gave me a pep talk.
“Carrie, none of this matters,” he said. “We are masters of our own destiny.”
It was so true. In my heart it mattered, but it didn’t matter to the point where I was going to drive myself crazy. I needed to find the right balance—how the fuck do you not give a fuck and give all the fucks at the same time? It’s the key to life. This was our business; we were the bosses. We weren’t chasing a sound bite or a breaking news headline; we were chasing a magical moment that may or may not happen. I just needed to go into these interviews, have a good time, and come out alive. Over the years, that would be the only advice that would snap me back from the edge.
“This is fun,” Kourosh would tell me. “When it stops being fun, we’re done.”
Fun was the key word. This whole business is supposed to be an exercise in fun. It’s privileged people with privileged lives doing privileged things that most of us can only dream of. There is no reason why any of us shouldn’t be spreading joy, laughing, and thanking our lucky stars for each day in this business. The ones that take themselves too seriously and behave like its God’s work or they’re curing cancer ruin it for all of us and could use a harsh lesson in humility. We’re not doing God’s work or curing cancer. And neither are Bruce “Look Who’s Talking” Willis and Tommy Lee “Black Moon Rising” Jones.
Remember my high school boyfriend, Pete, from Chapter 3? He actually had cancer. That was a serious situation that definitely deserved gravity. Let me share with you what that looks and feels like. It’s a memory I hang on to to remind me to re
member what’s actually important.
I remember pulling up his dressing gown for the first time after his surgery. I asked if I could kiss his boo-boos. He reluctantly said yes. As I lifted it, I saw thirty-seven staples right down the center of his body, from his sternum to just above his pubic hair. I counted them. Inspected them. I was fascinated by how they went in, how symmetrical they were, and how they went around his belly button. I loved Pete so much I wanted to know every part of him. He was freaked out at me seeing his incision. I think he was freaked out about sharing most of this whole process with me. He could barely process it himself.
The day he lost his hair was the day I was going to ask him to prom. I went over to his house. He was in the shower, so I turned on Star Trek: The Next Generation and started making us my customary grilled cheese sandwiches. He didn’t come out. I knocked on the door. No answer.
“You okay?” I called to him.
I could hear the water running so I got a little concerned that maybe he’d fallen or passed out and couldn’t answer. I knocked again, and when it was still silent, I just barged in, expecting to see him facedown in a tub of water. Instead, through the steam, I could see him standing in the shower, staring down at his hands, which were filled with clumps of his beautiful long brown locks.
My eyes stung with tears. I quickly grabbed a towel off the rack and dabbed at them. I didn’t want him to see me crying. I approached him, patted him down softly with the towel, then wrapped him up. He put his hair in the sink and we stared at it. I went back into the kitchen to give him some space. I remember him standing in front of the mirror for quite a while. A little later, I could hear him gagging, again, while he was brushing his teeth. They were all terrible side effects of the chemo.
When Pete finally came out of the bathroom, his waist was wrapped in the towel I’d given him, and his head was wrapped in the white T-shirt he had been wearing before his shower. He didn’t speak. He just sat down on the couch next to me and ate his grilled cheese with mustard hearts. I felt helpless. There was poison coursing through his body. I found one of those containers you use for a make-your-own-salad at the grocery store, went back into the bathroom, and put the pile of hair inside of it. I don’t know why; it just felt like it was the right thing to do, in case he wanted to mourn the loss later, or something.
I didn’t ask him to go to prom with me that day, but after much convincing by his friends and family, he ultimately agreed to be seen in public with no hair. We did our best to make it count. We wrapped his head in a black silk scarf, and I had a dress made. I remember taking pictures outside his house before driving away in our rented limo for his one evening away from the misery. I can still see the smiles on his mom’s and sister’s faces.
I’m only telling you this story because it gave me perspective. I take what I do very seriously, but nothing we do is cancer-serious. We are entertaining people, hopefully dulling their pain from time to time, putting a smile on their faces, and making them forget their shitty days.
The Rock understood that; bless his big heart under those big pecs. He’s a wonderful human being, so funny and charming. Everything I hoped Bruce Willis would be. The Rock made it so easy for me to get back in the saddle. We got along so well; he infused me with energy and confidence again. It was like, “Oh yeah, this is a blast. I can do this.”
Slowly, I eased back into it, with Kourosh taking on any interview that had the potential to go sideways to protect me. But Bruce the buzzkill kept popping up because it seemed he had a movie coming out every time a bear shit in the woods.
We got offered The Whole Ten Yards junket.
“No fucking way,” I told Kourosh.
We were asked to cover Hostage.
“No fucking way,” I told Kourosh.
Bruce kept releasing movies, Kourosh kept asking me to interview him again, and I kept turning him down. Until finally, nearly three years after the original fiasco, Kourosh had had enough. Bruce was releasing 16 Blocks with rapper Mos Def, the junket was in New York City, and he didn’t ask me if I was going; he told me I was going.
“Fuck you, no,” I said.
“Fuck you, yes,” Kourosh said. “You are doing this.”
It wasn’t like I was a depressed disaster anymore, but we both knew that I’d never have Bruce out of my system until I saw him again. He’d been orbiting around me for years, and my hatred for him had festered like a puss-filled zit that needed to be popped. Like the ones I’d studied on YouTube during my downtime. Sorry, that was a really gross image but so necessary to move this story forward.
“This is the therapy you need,” Kourosh added. “You need to get back in the room and face your fear. And you’re going to realize it’s not as big a deal as you think it is because you left it in your head for so long.”
“Fine! I’ll do it.”
The NYC junket couldn’t have been more opposite from the California junket. Pasadena was lush and beautiful; the opulent Ritz was like a castle. Manhattan was cold and dreary; the rooms at the Regency on Park Avenue were small dark little boxes. My frame of mind was 180 degrees, too. I was so happy to be there last time and so not happy to be there this time. I tried very hard not to have a massive panic attack in the elevator on the way up. The only way I could wrap my head around going in was I knew I didn’t even have to be good. I just had to get through it.
After so many years had passed, Bruce would forgive me for the “get lei’d” comment, right? I mean, he couldn’t possibly be mean to me again … could he?
When I walked into the room, Bruce was slouched down in his chair and had a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes. He didn’t acknowledge me, shake my hand, or get up and walk out, nada. He had no fucking idea who I was. I meant absolutely nothing to this guy, but I had let him destroy my life.
With his very best resting asshole face on full display, it was very obvious Bruce didn’t want to be there. Great, neither did I. Finally something in common to talk about! If I had the balls I have now, I would’ve made the exact same joke as last time about getting lei’d. But the truth was I was scared shitless. All I wanted to do was get out of there without my head exploding. I also needed to confirm that whole “It’s not me, it’s you” thing.
Thankfully, I received that confirmation. Though I was a professional and suppressed every ounce of my desire to be passive-aggressive, he mumbled incoherently (or, maybe, intentionally. Who knows?) through the entire interview. I don’t even know what I talked to him about, and I’m not going to bother looking it up. It’s irrelevant. What matters is that I made it through my four minutes, and a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.
So to answer my own question, yes, he could be mean again.
But I don’t regret going back at all. It was the best thing I ever did. I realized that nothing I could have said or done then or now would have made a difference. All that time stressing and questioning myself afterward was such a waste. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. As Mark Knopfler once said, “Sometimes you’re the windshield; sometimes you’re the bug.” Everybody has that “I carried a watermelon” moment. You know, remember the scene in Dirty Dancing when Baby met Johnny Castle for the first time at the staff party?
Johnny: Yo, cuz, what’s she doing here?
Billy: She came with me. She’s with me.
Baby: I carried a watermelon.
Johnny: (He glares at her then literally shimmies away.)
Like, why did I just say that out loud? I’m an idiot! Baby didn’t hold on to that though. She got over it quickly and ended up schtupping Johnny. They’d say schtupping in the Catskills for sure.
I was never going to schtup Bruce Willis for sure. My biggest regret was letting him have such a profound and prolonged effect on me. Hell, I almost quit and walked away from my career for fuck’s sake! Would I have been fine if I had just thrown in the towel and done something else with my life? Of course. But I chose to take the harder road—faced my fear—and I became be
tter for it.
Every scar has a story; every broken bone makes you stronger. The best thing about Bruce throwing me shade was that it strengthened my game. Now when I walk into a room, I’m hypersensitive to the vibe and react accordingly. My gut told me the first time that something was off, and yet, I still asked him that question. Nowadays, I don’t think about Bruce Willis when I walk into a room anymore, but don’t think, for a second, that he’s not three thoughts behind. There’s always the possibility that it could happen again. True, I’ll never react to it the same way I did, but there is little doubt in my mind that someone I admire could pants me again. It’s an unsettling feeling, but I’ve learned to live with it.
But you know, this dude has been mean to so many. He’s been leaving shit tickets everywhere, all over town, throughout his career. I shouldn’t have taken it so personally, but that’s really hard to do. You have to be an extremely evolved human being. I’m not there yet. I remember watching the weirdness in action during Kourosh’s interview with Bruce and Matthew Perry, who were paired together, at The Whole Ten Yards junket. There’s an uncomfortable competitive thing happening in the room between the two of them, and you could clearly see that Matthew was literally rolling his eyes in frustration throughout the interview and looking like he wanted to choke Bruce out. It was unusual to see a celebrity lose their cool like that, but I guess being trapped in a room with Bruce Willis for an entire day will send you to the nuthouse.
Everybody Curses, I Swear! Page 32
