Actors Anonymous

by James Franco

  I had Campbell’s soup for lunch with toast and butter and a glass of water. There was still no call from the agent, so in the early evening I walked over to the library again and got Lust for Life, a movie about Van Gogh. As I walked back to the apartment, the sun was sinking into the smog. Back in the apartment, the light was a tattered gold-brown. I watched the film about crazy Van Gogh.

  The real Van Gogh used to walk a whole day just to see the girl he loved step out of a church. I had almost watched the whole movie when the phone rang. I pressed pause and Van Gogh was stuck at the asylum missing half his ear.

  It was Sabrina.

  “Hi, Jerry. I talked to the partners, and we think that you need a little more experience, okay?” she said.

  “Okay,” I said. “But how do I get experience?”

  “Well, you need to work more.”

  “Okay.”

  “You understand?” she said.

  “But how do I get work if I don’t have an agent?”

  Pause.

  “Yeah, well, we just all thought that you need a little more experience.”

  “Uh, right. That doesn’t really make sense, but okay.”

  “Okay, thank you. Talk to you later.”

  She was waiting on the line. I heard paper.

  “Good-bye,” I said, and she hung up.

  I paged Bree, and then I turned the movie back on. Van Gogh fussed about, and then he went to the field where the black crows were and shot himself. I put in A Place in the Sun, which I owned, and then Bree called.

  “Are you mad at me?” I said.

  “What? What do you mean?” She sounded good, almost as sweet as usual. Her voice transmitted something solid, light blue and reassuring.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t do well in the scene in class, and I thought maybe you didn’t like me anymore.”

  “Jerry, that is ridiculous. I don’t care about a stupid scene in class.”

  “I know, but I really thought I was good. I mean I really believed what I was saying, and I can’t believe he told me I was faking it.”

  “What do you mean? Believed what?”

  “Just about my feelings. Nothing, never mind.”

  “Jerry…” she said, and then nothing.

  “Do you like me?” I said.

  “Of course I like you, don’t be silly.”

  “Okay, sorry.” I almost felt good, but I knew something was gone between us.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “You’re great, you’re such a cool guy and such a good actor.”

  “And so you’re not disappointed that your agent didn’t want me?”

  She answered really quickly.

  “Oh no, she liked you. She just thinks you need more experience.”

  “Right.”

  Then there was silence. The soft blue thing was there, hanging in the black space between us, but it was just out of reach, and I was suffocating. In the real world, the sun had long ago dropped behind the palm trees and apartment buildings, and the living room was black except for Monty Clift on the TV looking sensitive. He had Elizabeth Taylor in his arms and was telling her something very important, but the sound was down and I couldn’t hear him.

  “Well, do you think I could see you again?” I said.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m working on a new movie, but we’ll get coffee or something soon, okay?”

  And that was it. I turned the sound back on, but I didn’t watch. I just lay on the couch, which was actually my bed, and stared at the ceiling as the movie played. The light flickered in black and white on the ceiling and walls. I was in my own movie with light all around. There was a vague storyline running in my head, something dramatic. The most obvious part of the daydream/movie was that I was the star. I was an antihero lying on the couch thinking of stardom and wanting to be something so cool and sensitive that a whole generation would want to know me, and be me, and let me lead them. After a while of thinking like that, Shelley Winters started whining in the background. I looked up and they were in the boat. And then Monty killed her.

  Bree didn’t come to class for a while because she was working on her new movie. Class wasn’t as exciting without her there. I would do my scenes and work really hard, but there wasn’t the same kind of satisfaction, because she wasn’t watching. I wanted that light-blue feeling. And I also felt shitty because of the agent. I knew that I could do well in class, but it wouldn’t matter to the agent. I needed professional experience. My life was in a vacuum.

  Finally Bree and I planned to have coffee. I was very excited because I hadn’t seen her in three weeks. Not since the day we had kissed in the park. I hoped she hadn’t forgotten the kiss and that she still liked me. We planned to meet at Buzz Coffee on Santa Monica Boulevard, which was near her apartment. She was still working on the movie, so we planned to meet at 10 p.m.

  I waited at Buzz. The night was hot. The café was full of gay men in T-shirts and tank tops. While I waited, I read A Streetcar Named Desire. I almost read the whole thing, and then at 11:30, I got a page. I went outside to the payphone. I checked my messages. One was from my scene partner, Ben, who wanted to rehearse; he had a David Mamet scene he wanted to do. He worked in a bar and got off at 2 a.m., and wanted to rehearse at 2:30. The second message was from Bree. It was her voice, but I hardly felt any of the light-blue stuff. It was there but hidden deep below her words. She said that she had an early call the next day and couldn’t make it to Buzz and that she was sorry.

  I went back into Buzz and read Streetcar. I was feeling very alone and was on the last page when a guy sat next to me. He was tall with wiry arms and hair all over them and his hairline was receding but combed to the side in a sleek way. His presence was like a gazelle’s.

  He was pretending not to look at me, but when he saw that I was looking at him, he turned to me and said, “I love that play.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Tennessee,” he said, shaking his head like there was something he just couldn’t get over about Tennessee Williams. “He was a tortured soul.”

  “Yeah,” I said, and tried to read the last page, but the guy started talking again. His voice was high and had a slight whiney upswing at the end of his sentences.

  “I heard that Tennessee was Blanche in that,” he said. “That he was refined and sensitive like her, but that he also was attracted to the brute side of things, and that is why he wrote Stanley—because all his boyfriends were brutes like Stanley.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said.

  “I’m John,” he said, and put his hand very close to me.

  I shook it and said, “Pete,” thinking of my roommate.

  “What a funny name, Pete. Ha, how did you get that name, Pete?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a name. Normal.” I knew that this hairy guy wasn’t going to let me finish the last page, so I got up. “Nice to meet you, John. Sorry I have to go; it’s past my bedtime.”

  But the guy followed me outside.

  “It’s so hot out,” he said, but I didn’t say anything. I just kept walking. I walked to the parking lot behind the café. The guy was pretty nice, so I wasn’t scared, but he wasn’t going away. When I was almost to my car, I turned to him and said, “Can I help you with something?”

  “Oh,” he said. “I’m just an artist, and I thought maybe I could paint you some time.”

  “Paint me? Like naked?”

  “Oh, well, I was just thinking about your face, but sure we could do that too.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Oh, well, are you an actor?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yeah, I can tell. Oh, man, you are so hot, you are going to go so far,” he said, standing close to me, making his breath heavy. “Brad Pitt has nothing on you, baby,” he whispered. “You are going to be a motherfucking star.” And then he leaned in and kissed me on the lips, and for a second I let him. His stubble pulled me out of it. I put my hand on his chest and pushed him a
way. His gazelle body was full of energy, but I got away from him and to my car.

  He was still by me.

  “Fuck off,” I said over my shoulder. I got in my car and slammed the door, but he was standing right there at the window. He stood still as marble as I pulled away.

  There was a 7-Eleven close by. I went in and got a rose with plastic around the stem. The gay kiss made me excited, like life was happening. I drove over to Bree’s feeling romantic and wild.

  It was an old art deco place, all white. I parked the car across the street and walked up. There were sculpted bushes all around and a black-and-white check pattern on the ground in front of the main door. Her unit was five stories up. The lights were off up there, so I climbed the fire escape ladder onto the roof. It was about midnight.

  At the top, I leaned over the side and saw her window. I knew which one it was from when we had rehearsed there. I tried to hit it, but the angle was bad. I missed a bunch of times, and the coins fell onto a dumpster in the parking lot below. I tried all my coins, quarters too, but she didn’t wake up. I sat on the roof, holding the rose, looking at the sky. The moon was bright, and I could see the dark part, not reflecting anything back.

  I sat for twenty minutes feeling something like sadness and also feeling very romantic, like a poet. I was getting cold; I only had a T-shirt on. I got up and walked around on the roof quietly. It was steeply pitched, and I could have fallen off. There were apartment buildings across the street, and if someone looked they could see me being a prowler. I scooted on my butt to the edge of the roof on the side of her apartment opposite her bedroom.

  I gripped the rain drain on the side of the roof and went for it—I swung through the void onto her balcony. Once I landed, I felt like I had accomplished something. My blood circulated fast; everything else was quiet. I wraith-floated across the balcony to the door, and, like a wish granted, it was unlocked.

  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

  THAT’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.