Friends: A Love Story (21 page)

“Angela, Angela, right here! Look over here!”

“Oh, okay, okay!”

Click, click, click.

I took as many pictures as I thought I could without being too late—I mean, they can take over fifty pictures of you in less than a minute. But after a certain point I started saying, “I'm late, I have to get in there! Okay, I gotta go now….” Right before I went inside, I remember walking in front of this one
photographer—a woman with short black hair who was missing her front teeth. She always seems to be standing up front on the red carpet. I stopped for a moment for her to photograph me, but apparently it wasn't long enough. “BOO! BOO!” she shouted. I mean, she booed me at the top of her lungs. I was green to all that stuff—and Southern, all accommodating, in terms of my upbringing. I wasn't cold like some people are. I was the type of person who cared what others thought of me. Seeing her face as she booed me like that was like looking at the devil! Her derision pierced me like an arrow. It was an ugly sight, and ugly piece of humanity. I started crying. Later the
National Enquirer
ran a picture of me wiping my tears on my little hot pink Donna Karan jacket, the best piece of clothing I had.

While I was trying to blot my eyes, I walked through the door into the hotel. I immediately bumped into Anthony Hopkins and started crying again. I admired Anthony Hopkins for all of his roles—for portraying Hannibal Lecter in
Silence of the Lambs
and Jack Lewis in
Shadowlands,
for instance—but I had no idea I felt strongly enough about him that I would start crying. I was just “Wow!”—he'd just popped right off the movie screen and now was standing right next to me. The whole thing was just emotional—I was a raw emotional wreck. I stood behind Anthony while we posed for the official paparazzi—the photographers who were allowed on the inside. I guess the people outside were trying to get whatever pictures they could to support their livelihood. For all I know, the people who knew better may have rushed by them so they could get inside. But on the inside, everyone walked graciously in front of the photographers and we were treated well.

The Oscar luncheon was great—it was a lot of fun! At one point Stephen Spielberg walked up to me and asked, “Where have you been?”

“Oh, I've been here acting all along,” I told him. “I was aware of you, you just weren't aware of me.” We laughed. It was a very
exciting time. For the first time people could associate the face and the names of both Laurence and me. Having people associate your face with your name is every actor's dream.

I invited my mother to be my date to the Academy Awards themselves. I thought it was only appropriate that I bring my mom. She raised me. That's who put values and work ethic in me. She was the person who had always told me, “Don't settle for average,” and “Work hard and be nice!” I wanted to make my mother happy. I wanted her to be proud of me. When we were seated, I sat there on the aisle wearing my big, poofy Escada dress—feeling all princessy. Her seat was right next to Anthony Hopkins, which was nice since he and I now had a little history. I got to say, “Mr. Hopkins, this is my mom, Betty Bassett. Mom, this is Anthony Hopkins!” She was thrilled and impressed with him. Wren escorted my sister to the ceremony and they sat elsewhere in the auditorium.

When the presenters started reading the names for Best Actress, the category for which I'd been nominated, I remember Mom squeezing my hand. She was squeezing it so tight she almost cut off my circulation.

“And the Oscar goes to…”

And in that moment before they called the name, it was so exciting. It was like time sped up and slowed down at the same time. Although I definitely wanted to win, I had the thought in my mind that whoever's name they called, whatever happened, I knew I would be okay with it. I felt Mom keep squeezin' my hand. Then I could see the presenter form the first letter of the winner's name. “Holly Hunter!” And it's like, “Ahh!” and you exhale. And you know that with that television camera focused on you, you want to be strong and be a lady. And you saw the movie and she was very good in it. But part of you can't believe it because you know it could have gone either way. And your mother is still squeezing your hand.

Yes, Holly Hunter won the Oscar that year. But in the years
from then until now, if I haven't heard, “You should have won the Oscar,” a thousand times, I haven't heard it at all. For a long time every day of the year, I must have heard it twice a day. All these years later I still hear it often. Consistently. But it was as it was for whatever reason—whether Holly's fabulous performance as a mute woman in
The Piano
or the Academy not being ready to give an Oscar to a black woman. I'll never know. I would have loved to win that Oscar, but as I said, I focus more on the work. There are some awards that are important to me, but by and large they are more important to others.

B
ack in New York there were two missions I had to accomplish: one was to get back into the show; the other was to find a therapist. I called Stockard right away. Regardless of the other things I had to do, the show would go on, and I was worried about what it was going to be like getting onstage after being away for over a month. I knew I'd have to start all over again. But I figured that once I had the show back in rhythm, I could figure out what the heck I was going to do in the other portions of my life.

I threw myself into my work. From the outside things looked good.
Six Degrees
was the talk of New York. Professionally I was on a roll—
Six Degrees, The Hunt for Red October, My Children! My Africa! Fences, Hamburger Hill
—everything looked wonderful! I was making a decent amount of money, and Ahren and I moved into a nicer apartment. I would eventually earn a Tony nomination for Best Actor for my performance in
Six Degrees.
But personally, I was in crisis mode; on the inside, I was dying. Eight times a week I was playing a character who was lost and trying to find himself, trying to connect with somebody, a black man trying to fit into a white family. At the same time I had lost my father to an incredible tragedy, was feeling adrift and
going to work and relating to people in exclusive, predominately white, environments. My character, Paul, was struggling; I was struggling. We were both on the edge. I was barely eating. Every night onstage, I was just “gutting it out.” The irony of the role I was playing ripped me apart. I'd go home and just focus on the play. I became obsessed. “Let me read my notebook.” I kept working the play over and over, whenever I had an opportunity. I knew I had to get up onstage that night and I wasn't sure how I'd do it. I started to lie more and more to prop up my facade. It became hard to find a place in my mind where there wasn't a lie. The biggest lie was the one I was telling myself: that I was fit to be onstage.

True to her incredible heart and spirit, Ahren was there for me every step of the way. But our relationship was getting more tenuous. I was rarely at home, and when I was, I was focused on the play. I became addicted to 1-900 numbers as a way to alleviate my pain. Pornography is like a drug. It is a sickness and I was in the thick of it. I didn't make time for her. I paid no attention to her or what was going on with us. I didn't know anything about therapists, but Ahren was kind enough to let me see hers. As an actor I had become comfortable with the idea of talking about my emotions. I now knew it was okay to cry and that where the heat of the emotion was, that's where I'd find relief. But I'd never done therapy before. What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to talk first? How did it work? The first time I went I just held my head in my hands the whole time. The therapist asked, “Do you have a headache?” In my head I responded, “DO I HAVE A HEADACHE! YOU KNOW I DON'T HAVE A HEADACHE! I JUST DON'T KNOW HOW TO BEGIN!” I was upset that she wasn't being helpful.

Initially, I didn't have a good feeling about Ahren's therapist. I knew she was a professional, so I didn't worry that she would judge me. But I needed help and I didn't like the way she sat back and seemed to be waiting for me to do something—I
wasn't sure what. Next I met with a black woman. She was the same way. She sat back and waited. I knew I was numb; I knew I was a mess; I knew I needed to find someone who would proactively facilitate my healing process. So I kept getting recommendations from people. I knew I'd eventually identify someone I was comfortable with.

On Wednesdays, between the matinee and the evening show, I started getting massages. One of my cast members told me she had a great Swedish-massage person named Guinila. The first time I laid down on Guinila's table, she asked, “Is there anything I should know about before I begin?”

“My father committed suicide about a month and a half ago,” I said. Then I broke down in tears. Guinila worked on my body for about two hours. We talked about a lot of things and I told her that I was looking for a great therapist. At the end of the session she said, “I think I know the perfect person for you.”

“Who?”

“Her name is Dr. Margaret Kornfeld.”

I decided to make an appointment.

The night before I met her I had a very vivid dream. I was wearing cowboy boots and there were big decorative pillows on the ground to lie on. I remember they felt very comfortable. Later that day when I went to Dr. Kornfeld's office, I knew she was the right person for me as soon as I shook her hand. Her spirit was very gentle.

“Where do you want to sit?” she asked.

There were two sides to her office: the side with the desk and chair seemed a little more formal; the other side was more relaxed. It had a couch with pillows on it. The pattern on the pillows was the same pattern as the pillows in my dream! I knew I was home. By now I understood that therapy involved talking, so I just started pouring everything out, talking a mile a minute.

“Courtney, you don't have to tell me everything at once.”

“Oh, I don't know exactly how this works.”

“It's okay. We'll take it slowly. A step at a time.”

I felt relieved—as though I finally had time and space to devote to just me. I felt excited about having someone to talk to who would understand and help me. Once we got going I found therapy so freeing I wished I had started ten years earlier. There was a lot of stuff I really needed to deal with. In one session she asked me to tell her about my childhood.

“I don't remember it.”

“You don't remember your childhood?”

“No, but I used to write down my dreams. I have a book of dreams at home I could show you.”

“Bring it in.”

I brought it in but it was really too spotty to help in any meaningful way, so I began to look for dream books and workshops. I found a workshop at the New School that looked promising: Breakthrough Dreaming by Gail Delaney. I immediately alerted the stage manager of the show that I would be “sick” in about a month so I could attend the day-long class. It was there that I found the tools to begin what became a life-altering journey into my dreams. Ms. Delaney taught that people, locations and settings of dreams are very important; however, our dreams are encoded in a way that is unique to us. Therefore, no one can interpret our dreams for us—a blue sky means something totally different to me than it does to anyone else—we just need to figure out what our subconscious is uniquely telling us. One way to do that, Ms. Delaney explained, is to train our minds to remember the last thing we were thinking upon awakening.

Eager to try out my new techniques, I got some paper, a pen and a flashlight and put them by my bedside. Each time I woke up I wrote down the first thing that came to my mind. The first three days I tried I got nothing. But on the third night, dreams began coming like a flood! I began by having a couple of dreams a night and ended up with seven or eight a night! Of course, Dr. K. was totally overwhelmed when I brought in fifty
dreams that first week. She encouraged me to identify the one dream that had the most emotional heat—intensity—and bring it in so we could discuss it.

I threw myself into recording my dreams each night. I rushed to go to bed; I felt like I was on a mission! During the night I would awaken several times, turn on my flashlight and write down all my dreams, giving them catchy titles based on where I felt the heat—names like “Runnin' in the Attic,” “Ketchup,” “Peanut Butter Soup.” I had dreams about Bottom; dreams about attics and basements; dreams about offenses and defenses in football and basketball; dreams where I was running from something; dreams about race—black and white.

In time Dr. K. began to see patterns.

“Do you know that whenever Bottom's in your dream, that's you?”

“Bottom's me?”

“Yes. In real life you and Bottom are so intertwined that you know what's going on with each other. You know when he's upset, when he isn't feeling well. You can touch his nose, look in his eyes, look at whether his tail is up or down and know what's going on, right?”

“Right…”

“So whatever's happening with Bottom in your dream is actually what's going on with you in your life. How Bottom's feeling in the dream is actually how you're feeling in life.”

To someone who wasn't very in touch with his feelings and was just learning how to deal with them, that was a powerful revelation. In time our work with my dreams eventually began to give me a tremendous amount of insight into how I was doing. But my healing took time. The unfolding was slow. The process occurred over three years.

 

By late spring of 1991, I started getting
Six Degrees's
rhythm down; it took up residence in my bones. Rather than having
to start my preparation early in the day and arrive three hours early to do a walk-through in my dressing room, I could come in at seven-thirty, get hyped—I had a ritual similar to that of a professional athlete—and be ready to walk onstage at eight. I knew how to give the part exactly enough energy to play it well without wearing myself out. I gave no more, no less. Still, in addition to the physical rigors, to play such an emotional role in the middle of what I was going through was tremendously taxing.

In the meantime, Ahren was continuing her therapy. She became able to articulate her feelings for me, as well as what she wanted and where she wanted the relationship to go. She wanted us to be closer. She wanted a truthful, honest relationship. It became more and more clear to her that we needed to talk. She kept trying to find ways to bridge the gap and use all the tools she was learning in her sessions. But especially now that my father was gone, I was as numb as could be. She was trying to get clear, but my whole life, while improving, was still in shadows. I was slowly coming to realize that my life was a lie—that I had become an actor in life as well as onstage. Back then, I told people whatever they wanted to hear or whatever I needed to say to get them off my back. I didn't yet know how to have a conversation that might be difficult or unpleasant or require me to be honest about my emotions, so I kept avoiding them.

“What do we need to talk about? Things are fine.”

I'm sure at some point Ahren must have wanted to discuss marriage; however, I was only beginning to become aware of how I was feeling, which is essential to telling the truth. I knew what it meant to be boyfriend and girlfriend and “play house.” But I was just beginning to learn what it meant to be a man. I didn't know yet what it meant to be committed to someone. What was the next step? How do you get to it? I didn't know. I was a mess. In the meantime, Ahren must have thought, “I can't marry this man!” She didn't know what to do. Even if she had
wanted to, she couldn't have afforded her own apartment. I was stuck; she was stuck; we were stuck.

Late that summer, she and I took a big two-week vacation at a five-hundred-acre hay farm in upstate New York. It was harvest time. Warm and beautiful. We needed to get away. Our relationship hadn't improved much, but I was starting to learn to communicate better.

“Ahren, I've gotta get out of the play,” I told her. “I'm exhausted.”

“Then give your notice, Courtney.”

We had a lot of fun and invited a few friends to visit. That farm became our little sanctuary. “It's so nice here, I don't want it to end,” I told Ahren. But I don't know what we were thinking; we both had allergies out the wazoo. When they cut the hay, our eyes swelled shut and we had to leave. I got blue at the thought of going back to work and the pressures of the show.

“What are we going back into when we leave here?” Ahren asked me. We cried together. It was like she sensed things between us would disintegrate from there.

When I returned to the city, I gave six-weeks' notice, which was enough time for them to find somebody else. James McDaniel didn't want to come back and they couldn't find anybody else, so they decided to close the show in early January 1992. They wanted me to stick around.

But I was done. I literally could not do it anymore. Something had to change. “I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I can't do no more.”

“What will it take to get you to stay?”

“The hardest part is commuting back and forth from Brooklyn and hanging around the city in between shows,” I told them. “I'm tired. So give me a car to and from the theater, and double my salary so that when I come back to Broadway I'll come back at a higher rate.”

“No!”

“Okay, I'm out!”

“Hold on, Courtney! We'll double your salary and give you the car three times a week.”

“No. You can't pay me enough money to continue to do this role. I have loved it but it is time to stop. It's not about the money; it's about the car. Please give me a car or I am fine with ending my run now.” We came to an agreement. I got the money and the car and now I could relax the whole way to the theater and finish out my run with the show.

 

My work life now became more manageable, but that fall my relationship with Ahren deteriorated. I was still emotionally numb on the inside. Even though through my therapy I was becoming more self-aware, I had a lot of issues to deal with that had been years in the making, and I was still reeling from my father's suicide. I hadn't connected the dots enough to match my feelings with my actions. I didn't know how to grow closer to Ahren, like we both wanted. Nor could I figure out what to do after eleven years of being together. I knew I needed to do something, but instead of turning toward her, I ran away. I caused our relationship to fracture. I'm not too ashamed to lay out the details of my behavior; however, I don't want to be insensitive to her by resurrecting painful events. My behavior back then was callous enough.