Love Life (6 page)

I wondered if we should leave and not interrupt her private moment.

“Where is everyone?!?” she asked with authority, turning her gaze finally to Sheryl and me.

“I don’t know, Mrs. Shriver,” I replied. “I hope we aren’t disturbing you.”

“Not at all!” she said, crossing to the giant TV. “We should turn this on,” she said, trying to navigate the remote.

I thought of all the elections she had watched before, for her brothers, for her husband. I was overcome with emotion to be so close to her, she who had been so close to history, she who had played such a role in creating it for so long.

Although I had spent time with her over the years at various family functions, it wasn’t until very recently that we had gotten to know each other. Every year Maria and her brother Anthony hold a bike race as their fund-raiser for their Best Buddies charity for individuals with intellectual disabilities. One of the highlights being an extremely competitive bicycle-built-for-two race along a tight and dangerous course where a number of teams have gone ass-over-teakettle. At the last race Eunice had insisted I be her partner. I was shocked. I wasn’t
about to put her, at eighty-three years old, in a crash helmet on the back of a race bike.

“Come on, let’s go!” she said, grabbing me by the shirt.

Desperately I looked to Maria for help. She gave me a look that could not have been more clear: “You see what I deal with?!” along with underpinnings of a huge and prideful love.

Mrs. Shriver and I finished second that day.

Back in the presidential suite, I knew to hop to it when Mrs. Shriver wanted something.

“Can you help me with this remote?” she asked.

At that moment the door burst open to a raucous crowd of supporters and family members led by the great Sargent Shriver, brandishing his cane like a drum major.

“Woo-hoo!” he yelled, as Maria, beautifully dressed for the occasion in a white and black Armani dress, helped him to a chair.

The technology gods, who so often forsake me, smiled this night, and I managed to click the remote to CNN.

Now the room was filling in earnest with the big donors, the campaign brain trust and every member of the family. Other than
Ghostbusters
director Ivan Reitman, there were few members of the entertainment community. The vibe was quiet, filled with tension, but with an unmistakable sense of occasion. I found Arnold’s campaign manager, Steve Schmidt (later to be played by Woody Harrelson in HBO’s Sarah Palin movie,
Game Change
).

“How’s it looking?” I asked.

“Good,” he answered tightly. I awaited some evidence to support the assessment but got none. Maria sat with her kids and her cousin Caroline Kennedy on the big couch staring intently at the TV. I looked at my watch—it was seven
P.M.
and the polls had just closed.

The CNN breaking-news theme played.

“We can now project that Arnold Schwarzenegger will become the thirty-eighth governor of the state of California.”

Now, in a movie, the script would have had the room erupt, like New Year’s Eve, with lots of shouting, hugging and victory fists in the air. But in
real life
, it turns out, the celebration, if you could even call it that, was subdued, dignified, quiet and imbued with a dreamlike quality that made you begin to doubt that it was really actually happening. There was happiness and there was giddiness, sure, but it was way, way down deep, covered over by the dawning realization of the scope of what had transpired and the almost incomprehensible level of responsibility now at hand. As my mother used to say, “Be careful what you wish for.”

There was still no sign of the man of the hour, and now people really began to notice that Arnold had been AWOL, undoubtedly in a back room working on both a victory and, if needed, a concession speech.

“Can you fucking believe this?” said Ivan Reitman. “From
Kindergarten Cop
to governor.”

And now everyone was talking excitedly, in a low buzz, the room animated by a collective desire to put the moment in context. It became hard to hear.

But it was quickly, deathly quiet again as someone holding a phone said, “It’s Governor Davis calling.” CNN can declare winners all they want, but as anyone who watched Bush–Gore remembers, it ain’t over until someone cries uncle.

At the end of the big room’s hallway, a door opened. It was Arnold, suddenly and improbably looking like a governor. I studied his face—again, the truth vampire in me wanting to file this away for the moment when I might need to play a victorious candidate, as I indeed would in
Brothers & Sisters
and
Killing Kennedy
. If I’d have played the candidate as beaming, acknowledging all my supporters with a
smile, wink or handshake, luxuriating in an energetic and triumphant trot to the vanquished waiting on the phone, I would have gotten it completely wrong. The governor-elect’s walk was purposeful yet slow. He met no one’s eye; he stared straight ahead. There would be a time to hug his family and acknowledge friends, but that would be later.

This scene was not playing out as I had expected and I was trying to understand what I was seeing. People stood on either side as Arnold walked to the waiting phone. The wait felt excruciating, at least to me, but Arnold was in no hurry. He almost seemed unsure, a quality I
never
associate with him.

An aide handed him the phone. For a brief moment Arnold held it at his chest, almost on his heart, but I knew it was subconscious. I knew what I was looking at; I finally got what was happening here. I was watching someone step into their future, a man aware enough to understand that his life would never be the same and changes he would never see coming were part of success’s bargain.

“Governor Davis, how are you?” Arnold said.

It’d been a fairly tough campaign and not without its personal vitriol in the final days, as is common, so I could only imagine that Governor Davis, if he were to be truthful, would have answered, “Not so good!”

I tried to get a clue from Arnold’s face or body language as to what was being said on the other end of the line, but there was no indication. But clearly Governor Davis was doing all the talking.

Then after a moment, from Arnold, “Thank you.”

Another shorter bit of listening, then, “Thank you . . . thank you so much. Bye.”

Arnold hung up the phone. For the first time he looked around the room. “Governor Davis wanted to offer his congratulations on the victory and was very gracious.”

In a TV show or movie, theme music would have played now,
and finally the winner would have smiled and people would certainly have rushed to him for the beginning of a huge celebration. But I noted that on this night, in real life, the crowd didn’t know how to react. It waited to take its cue from how the winner would react, and he, unlike an actor playing a made-up governor-elect, had to focus on the next piece of business at hand. The victory speech was now moments away and would be seen all around the world. So Arnold and his staff headed back down the hallway to prepare. Nothing tangible, in fact, had really happened.

It’s this kind of life detail that you can’t write or act with total authenticity unless you’ve experienced it. You literally can’t make it up. And if you try to, it will look, feel and play like you did.

Whether it’s a death of a loved one or a life-changing event with the world watching, these are the kinds of big moments that are often the turning points in stories and performances. With a knowledge of life’s details, the performance becomes the next challenge. And to do that, you have to build your “character.”

I never had an acting teacher, unless you count my drama classes in junior high. I was fortunate to work at a high level from the time I was fifteen, so I didn’t have time or need for the kind of traditional acting classes that most actors attend at some point. I learned by doing the actual deed, which I believe is the ideal.

(Sidebar: Remember how I discussed how much I will miss not having my son Matthew around when he leaves home? He has just cranked up his ever-present techno Studio 54–meets–Eastern European–authoritarian–marching–song music, making it next to impossible to write this. Can he go to college today?)

In 1993 I found out that one of my early favorite books, Stephen King’s
The Stand
, was finally coming to the screen as an eight-hour miniseries for ABC.

I took a meeting with the executives at ABC and they offered me
one of the great roles, Larry. The romantic wannabe rock singer and major hero.

I had other ideas.

“I want to play Nick Andros.”

“The deaf-mute?” asked the exec.

“Yes.”

“But he has no lines!” said the exec.

“Sure, I know, but I feel like it would be more of a challenge and for sure less expected than playing a sort of traditional romantic lead.”

“You know he gets killed before the end? It’s a smaller part than Larry.”

“I’m okay with that,” I said.

The group shared a look that said, “Hey, if that’s what you want, what do we care?”

Later that week I got an offer to play the part.

And it is a great one. Nick is a bullied underdog, a lonely, sweet-natured survivor of the plague that has destroyed most of the world’s population. And indeed, his lack of dialogue would force me to find new ways to communicate on-screen and bring focus to him in a cast of other standout parts.

One morning as I sat with my coffee, going over the voluminous screenplay written by Stephen King himself, Sheryl offered some advice.

“Why don’t you get an acting coach?” she asked with the perfect amount of seriousness and guilelessness. Coming from anyone other than the one person in my life who I know without question has my best interests at heart, I might have taken offense, thinking, “After everything I’ve done, after all this time and success, you think I need an
acting coach
?!” But instead I stopped to consider what I had never considered.

“Like who?” I asked.

“Well, how about the one Michelle Pfeiffer, Geena Davis and that new kid Brad Pitt use?”

“Roy London?” I asked, referring to the current state-of-the-art acting Svengali.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

I didn’t overthink it. After all, what could be the worst that happened? I got nothing out of it and prepared the same way I had for years? I called Roy the next day and booked a meeting.

I saw him at his Hollywood apartment, in one of the great old buildings that stand as a reminder of a time when there was true glamour in that part of town. I was nervous. I had no idea what would unfold, how Roy liked to work or what the day’s process would be. We sat at the kitchen table.

“I’ve read the entire miniseries, but I’d like you to tell me how you see yourself in this part,” he said in an extremely casual way. As we sipped our coffees, there was no pressure or any sense that this was a “lesson” or “session” of any sort.

“Well obviously the challenge is playing a deaf-mute” (today I believe the proper term is “hearing and vocally impaired”).

“Yes,” said Roy, absently looking out the kitchen window.

“Clearly, I have no experience in this area, nothing to draw on, so I will probably do a lot of research. I need to know what it is like to not be able to communicate, to live without hearing.”

“I see,” said Roy.

“I’ve gotten the contacts to a number of schools for the deaf, I should spend time there, really immerse myself,” I added.

Roy nodded.

“But here’s my big idea. I have been deaf in my right ear since I got the mumps as a newborn. I’ve talked to some folks at UCLA and
they can design a hearing-aid-like device that will put white noise into my good ear. I won’t be able to hear at all! I could live like that for a few weeks and maybe even throughout the shoot.”

“Or you could just consider the times in your own life when you are unable to hear,” he said simply.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

He sighed deeply.

“Look, if you want to wear a blindfold and stumble around your house bumping into things to learn how to play ‘blind,’ you can do that. A lot of actors do. You can block your hearing and not speak. But great performances are based on truth. And the
truth
is that you, Rob Lowe, can hear and you can speak. To play otherwise is only adding a layer of falsehood to your performance. What you
must
do, in my opinion, is play this character as someone who hears and speaks, as
you
do, but chooses not to.”

I was completely taken aback. “Wait a minute. You don’t think I should play this character who
is
a deaf-mute as a deaf-mute?!”

“Exactly. Because the actor playing the part is not a deaf-mute.”

“But that’s the way it’s written!”

“Who cares! The writer isn’t playing the part.
You
are. And you hear and you speak and you need to be truthful. Actors should never play ‘ideas,’ ‘concepts,’ or even ‘characters,’ they play the truth and that’s it. Believe me, that alone will be hard enough as it is.”

Like most people in Hollywood I had believed that the tradition of immersing yourself in a foreign world was the highest form of character preparation possible. To do so was the hallmark of being a “Method” actor. Even the most inane gossip-TV tabloid entertainment reporter or actor-hating entertainment executive cowers in awe of the “Method actor.” The “Method” is the last bastion of fear and respect for the craft. But like anything, it has been misused, trotted out in self-congratulatory movie-star magazine profiles for attention and, I
suspect, led to a uniform style of performance that in the wrong hands can come across as extremely mannered and absolutely humorless.

Clearly, Roy London agreed. “Have you seen
Reservoir Dogs
?”

Of course I had; it had been Quentin Tarantino’s debut sensation a year back.

“Well, one of my students played the guy who was tortured to death and spends three-quarters of the movie dead and tied to a chair.”

“Sure, I know the part.”