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Celebrity
By Will Leitch
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I met Tom Cruise once. Met is probably too strong a word, but he was right there, standing right in front of me, next to Nicole, waiting to buy popcorn.
I should have known something was up when an armed policeman took my movie ticket. This was back when I lived in Los Angeles, and my co-worker and I decided to leave work early to see a "She’s So Lovely" matinee in Westwood. The officer was a large, intimidating black man, and I noticed his gun hanging, unbuttoned, from its holster. With a deep growl, sounding a lot like Ving Rhames, actually, he said, "Theater 2, to your left. Enjoy your movie." When we entered the lobby, there were Tom and Nicole, looking nervous. They shuffled their way through the lobby and found seats in the very front of the theater. Later, after we had taken our seats, they stood up and walked to the concession stand, eyes downward, hunched over, heads slightly shaking, like Peter Lorre on the run.
What do I remember about Tom and Nicole? Well, the obvious stuff: She was about a foot taller than him, they were surrounded by security people and they scooted out before the closing credits. I also remember finding it strange that they were Stateside at all; this was during the filming of "Eyes Wide Shut," a production that left them stranded in England for nearly a year, slaving to Stanley Kubrick’s whims. All accounts had them still over there, but nevertheless, they stood there, I saw them, in line, discussing something in a whisper, likely whether they would get Milk Duds or Sno-Caps. Tom seems like a Sno-Caps guy to me. Or maybe Gummi Bears.
Later that night, as was my way at the time, I drank myself into a stupor and fell asleep watching CNN on the couch in my underwear. My roommate woke me up at 2 a.m. and directed my attention to the television. Princess Diana had just been killed in a car accident, and speaking by phone, "directly from England," was Tom Cruise. He was describing how he’d just had dinner with Diana the night before, and how this was a horrible horrible tragedy, one that drove home the intrusive and dangerous nature of the paparazzi. Tom Cruise, I surmised through my vodka haze, was rather full of shit.
I asked out Reese Witherspoon. This was a couple of weeks before I moved from Los Angeles, still reeling from a failed engagement, and I was writing a story about a movie she was filming called "Best Laid Plans." While doing hallucinogenic mushrooms with my roommates - for a time reference, it was after we giggled for an hour about the color of our hallway but before I started uncontrollably weeping - they talked me into asking her out when I interviewed her the next day.
The interview lasted about 15 minutes, in a parking lot just off set. It consisted of the usually boring questions and boring answers, what was it like working with Alessandro Nivola, bullshit like that. She was about as excited and animated as she likely is opening her mail, and she checked her watch and yawned a lot. But I had promised my roommates, and I couldn’t go back on a promise, even a drug-induced one. I thanked her for her time and then paused.
"Listen … um, would you like to maybe go see a movie sometime? You know, with me?"
She smiled. She actually smiled. I have to give her that. "Oh! Well … I’m seeing someone, but that’s very sweet of you! Thanks!" Of course. I should have known that, I thought to myself, I should really start doing some research before these interviews. She shook my hand and pranced to her trailer. Hey, at least I did it. It’s a story I still tell, too. Lots of mileage out of that one.
Let’s see … what else … the other day I passed Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon walking past me across 18th Street, holding hands, which I thought awfully sweet. Every time I walk through Greenwich Village at night I see either Lili Taylor or Janeane Garofalo. I watched Liev Schreiber do four shots by himself in a greasy Lower East Side dive. Madeline Stowe sat down at the table next to me at a Wendy’s, ordered a milkshake and complained it was too thick to drink with a straw. Ozzie Smith once rode in an elevator with my dad. There are too many more floating around my memory to fit in one column.
Ask me to recount a detail, any detail, of a couple of my relationships, and I’m gonna draw a complete blank. Um, she was blonde? She was obsessed with her ex? She liked having her hair pulled? Maybe? Eh? OK, I got nothing. Sorry. But I can tell you how the beads of sweat gathered on the brow of Serj Tankian, the lead singer of System of a Down, as I interviewed him in LA’s Rainbow Bar. I can tell you how former Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog called me "kiddo." I can tell you how Rhea Perlman conked her daughter on the head when she started crying on the street. Tiny seconds, inconsequential at best, yet they’re stamped on the brain, forever, for no reason other than the individuals’ prominence in a Google search.
I suppose that makes sense. Real life is significant in a repressively dull way; just a bunch of nobodies trying to make each other believe the planet actually cares what they’re doing. (Any of those same ex-girlfriends will gleefully tell you that.) We make our human connections, and none of it will be written about or have its picture taken or have stalkers who are scary in a kinda flattering way. It matters, of course; it’s just that it matters only to us and the people we know. For me, that’s enough. It’s just tough to remember all of it.
Steve Martin (whom I haven’t met) has this great ritual. He refuses to sign autographs, but if you approach him, he will wordlessly hand you a business card and walk away. The card says, simply: "You have just had a Steve Martin Experience." That pretty much sums it up.
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Will Leitch's weekly column "Life as a Loser" appears on Me Three every Monday. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Join the Life as a Loser discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/onecrappycolumnist.
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2003 Me Three