There and Back Again (10 page)

As I've thought about it over the years, I've realized that it may have been a little inappropriate for me to inquire spontaneously in the way that I did. At the very least, I was being opportunistic.

As far as Meg Ryan goes, well, to say that I have anything more than a passing connection with Meg is just not true. Sure, my mom played her mom in a movie, and she and I acted, if not together, at least in the same film. She has been polite to me when we've met each other at parties—maybe even something a little more than courteous. But we've never had a fully realized exchange about anything, and that makes me a little sad. I wouldn't mention it except that this is a feeling I've had many times before, mostly in “Hollywood” settings.

Denzel Washington was a prince. We recorded his greeting in the morning right after the sun came up, with Denzel waving a big cigar around, smiling and turning on the charm. Meg, interestingly, was a different story. She initially agreed to my proposal while seated in the makeup chair, and then she got up to do her scene—but when I approached her afterward, she apparently had changed her mind.

“Do you want to do this now?” I asked.

Meg sort of hemmed and hawed, then drifted away, saying, “I think I'm going to do something else for that.”

Maybe she did; maybe she didn't. I don't know. In fairness, I'm not sure she even realized who I was (we had no scenes together) or what I was talking about, but I was disappointed nonetheless. There is a certain shallowness to Hollywood relationships that sometimes leads to disappointment, at least on my part. I like to think that I'm open with people and that I can find a common ground with almost anyone, so when what appears to be a friendship instead turns out to be nothing more than a short-term working relationship with no real foundation, it bothers me. The truth is, people in show business, probably more so than in other walks of life, are accustomed to feigning interest or protecting reputations, for whatever reason.

CHAPTER FOUR

In the summer of 1995, when I first was drawn into the strange and surreal world of Warren Beatty, my plate was already full. To be specific, three important things were happening in my life: I was in summer school at UCLA studying the Bible as literature and taking a class on Scandinavian cinema; I was editing an episode of a television anthology series called
Perversions of Science
that I had just directed; and most important of all, Christine was pregnant with our first child. While I was always open to new creative and business opportunities, I didn't need any more anxiety or responsibility. I knew I'd have to find a practical way to support my growing family and my various interests, so whenever the phone rang and a reasonably dignified acting offer was presented, I listened.

A call from Warren Beatty, of course, holds the promise for much more than a paycheck. We're talking about a man who is larger than life, a true Hollywood icon whose body of work is so substantial that it demands to be taken seriously. No amount of tawdry tabloid gossip or even the occasional
Ishtar
(which I actually liked) can diminish or overshadow his accomplishments. Warren is an artist, actor, businessman, director, producer, writer. He is a filmmaker in the most complete sense of the word. His acting credits alone are enough to merit a lifetime achievement award:
Bonnie and Clyde, Shampoo, Reds, Heaven Can Wait, Bugsy
, just to name a few. But he's often the driving creative and entrepreneurial force behind these films as well, which places him in a very different category. As with Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, and a handful of other filmmakers, Warren's is a meeting you show up for, regardless of the circumstances in your own life. The opportunity to work with him or for him is something no actor (no smart actor, anyway) would summarily dismiss. To her credit, my then William Morris agent, Samantha Crisp, recognized that fact, and so she set it up.

That's how I came to find myself in a big suite at Warren's Beverly Glenn offices, sitting on a sofa, hands folded, calmly but eagerly waiting to meet the man and discuss his latest project, a movie about an offbeat politician called
Bulworth
. I knew almost nothing about the project; as is typical with Warren's films, it was shrouded in secrecy. I'd been told that he was interested in having me play the part of a character named Gary C-Span, who was some sort of roving journalist assigned to document the travels of Warren's titular character. I hadn't seen a word of the script, didn't even know if there was a script. I knew only that Warren had supposedly expressed an interest in having me sign on. Why? I wasn't sure. Because of my work in
Encino Man?
Unlikely.
Rudy?
A better guess was that he was at least marginally impressed that my short film had been nominated for an Academy Award. I'm sure that represented a type of validation in the eyes of someone like Warren; at the very least, it might have momentarily prodded him into looking in my direction with a sense of curiosity.

In just about every way imaginable, Warren met my expectations, which is not to say that working on
Bulworth
was a wholly positive experience. It was, however, an experience I'm proud to have endured, one that meets the standard for Hollywood extremism. Our first meeting was, in my mind, one of those classic Hollywood introductions. Warren entered the room wearing sweatpants and a fanny pack, and despite the casual look, the disheveled hair, the stubble on his chin, he carried himself with a decidedly regal air, like a princely pauperish genius—like a man who knows he's a megalomaniac and sees nothing wrong with that description. In other words, exactly what you'd expect of Warren Beatty.

My goal was to harness whatever nervousness I felt and project an image of an honest, earnest, open-faced ideologue, which wasn't hard to do since that's pretty much the way I am. And he loved it; he just soaked me in, told me right away that he could use that persona in his movie, which I found genuinely exciting. Toward the end of the meeting, though, he really piqued my interest.

“I'm going to want you to do some writing,” Warren said.

“What kind of writing?”

He smiled. “You know … things.”

Cryptic as that was, I was intrigued. Would I be contributing to the script? Working on future projects? No matter. I wanted in. But there was one thing that concerned me.

“I'll do whatever you want,” I said, “but I have to be honest. I can't sign on without reading the script.”

Warren shrugged. “Fine. You can go in the other room there and read the script, but you should know that there's really no part for you yet. And you should do the movie anyway.”

He paused, waited for a reaction. I offered none. Then Warren smiled, in the way that only a person who is supremely confident can smile. “Just come along … see what happens. It'll be worth it.”

I should have been wary, but I remember feeling something akin to awe. I loved this guy, and I loved the fact that he was, in some small way, courting me. I sat there knowing full well that I was going to be able to add my name to the long and illustrious list of people who got seduced by Warren Beatty, and instead of being conflicted by that recognition, I was excited by it. Even now, nearly a decade later, I remain curiously ambivalent about the experience. My name is proudly on that list somewhere (near the bottom, no doubt), but instead of feeling resentment, I'm grateful that Warren was able to get creatively aroused over me for a minute or two, that he recognized who I was and thus invited me into his inner circle, if only for a brief time, on the simple premise that something interesting could happen. The reason that something interesting ultimately did not happen was my limitation, not his.

“Okay,” I said, “I'll look at the script.”

“Good.”

I got up, left Warren to his business, and went off to read the script. Indeed, just as he had promised, there was no role for me, no Gary C-Span to be found anywhere. Nevertheless, I shook Warren's hand and agreed to be part of his movie. I rationalized the decision on any number of levels. We were running out of money, the baby was coming, we had the fall semester of college to look forward to, and I was trying to figure out how to balance it all—how to pay for the house, be a new father, and keep Christine happy while we ran our production company together. I looked at the script, thought to myself,
The part is not on the page; this could be trouble
, and accepted the job anyway. I figured that I'd have only ten or twelve days of work during a four-month shoot, I'd learn something from working with one of the masters of cinema, and the rest of the time I'd be free to concentrate on school and family and entrepreneurial ventures.

That proved to be an enormous miscalculation.

“Great,” Warren said as his hand enveloped mine. “Now remember, Sean, I want to hear your ideas. I want you to be writing. All the time.”

I looked him in the eye and, with only a trace of irony, said, “Thank you, Warren. I look forward to writing and handing you pages and having you turn them down.”

It was almost like something buried deep in my consciousness was saying it, the thing that I knew I needed to say in order to get the job. Not to be irreverent, not to be disrespectful or funny, but to let him know that I understood my place in his world, a world in which it is perfectly acceptable for the director and star to torture and humiliate his writers on a daily basis. That's what it was like on
Bulworth
. Amiri Baraka, a poet and scholar and sometime actor who played the part of a character known as Rastaman, had been given the same instructions and encouragement that I'd received, and he took them to heart. Amiri showed up almost nightly on the movie with reams of paper, detailed notes on his character and how it fit into the story, only to have them dismissed out of hand. And he kept coming back for more!

No one experienced more anguish than Jeremy Pikser, the credited cowriter (along with Warren) of the screenplay. (Little known fact: Aaron Sorkin, the creator of
The West Wing
, is one uncredited writer on
Bulworth
. Exactly what that means, I'm not sure. Did Aaron write the original draft? Did he rewrite Jeremy's work? Who knows? I'd be the last person to try to explain how Warren Beatty concocted the idea for this strange and brilliant movie, or how he captured the imagination of somebody like Aaron Sorkin—a genius in his own right—the contract that was written between them, or why Aaron had his name taken off the film. I'm going to understand or explain that? No way.) I watched Jeremy suffer, day in and day out, at the hands of Warren Beatty. Jeremy tried to help Warren create a counterculture figure in the character of Bulworth, while trying to create a career for himself, and toward the end the poor guy seemed like an emotional wreck.

I think of all of this now as I remember that first conversation with Warren at his office, when I stood in the doorway and told him I'd be honored to experience his firm editorial hand, to have him reject every idea, every written word and thought, that I threw his way.

And his response was a single simple word, spoken with a smile: “Good.”

*   *   *

The next day I visited the set of
Bulworth
, primarily to soak up some atmosphere and meet a few of my coworkers, including Oliver Platt. Oliver is a big hulking behemoth of a brilliant actor, and a man who has, shall we say, a
presence
. He entered the stage like a summer thunderstorm and thrust out a meaty hand.

“Sean, nice to meet you! Man, I loved you in
Rudy
. What a great movie!”

“Uh, thanks, Oliver. Nice to meet you, too.”

“Yeah, this is going to be special. Gary C-Span is so cool, the way he doesn't do anything the whole movie, and then he gives a speech at the end? That's brilliant, man. Fucking brilliant!”

Whoaaaaa …

I didn't agree with him, but I didn't want to disagree either, because the truth was I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Oliver had more information about my character than I did, and it occurred to me that somehow he'd gotten deep inside Warren's head (in much the same way that Ian McKellen would burrow into Peter Jackson's head during the filming of
The Lord of the Rings
). He was so far inside Warren's head, in fact, that there was almost no way to separate them. Oliver, I suspected—and later this was demonstrated to be true—had suggested to Warren that the character of Gary be mute throughout the film, and then spring eloquently to life at the climax; Warren had liked the idea, and so they had moved forward believing it. My heart began to race. A day earlier I had met with Warren, had heard him say, “Come along with me, and we'll see what evolves.” And now I was standing on the set, having my hair blown back by Oliver Platt as he dissected the character I had been assigned the task of not merely playing, but interpreting—even, to a degree, creating—a dissection I found baffling, but that apparently made sense dramatically to the director. I hadn't even signed a contract yet, and already I felt trapped. The only way to get out of the trap was by advocating for myself, quickly and aggressively. Why I didn't want to do that is … well, it's the imp of the perverse, isn't it? That little node of self-destruction that people allow in themselves, and that always leads to trouble.

Bulworth
proved to be an unbelievable four-month apprenticeship that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world, because I learned so much not only about the art of filmmaking and cinema culture, but also about what it means to use and abuse power. It was in some ways the most important four months of my professional life, although I'm not sure I'd want to live through it again. Before accepting the job, I had sought the advice of a friend and mentor, and his response was thoroughly negative.