Love Life (26 page)

“Mom, there’s a dog lying down in the trail!” said one of the boys. (Although I couldn’t see, I could hear perfectly.)

I was flooded with humiliated panic, convinced that imminently the boys would charge the “dog” to discover me in costume, flat on my face. There would be no way to explain it that wouldn’t be the kind of mortifying scenario all parents desperately spend their lifetimes trying to avoid.

“Aaauuuughoooh!” I screamed, hoping to stave them off, as I crawled around on all fours, the tightness of the suit making it impossible to stand. “Aaauuuughooh!”

I made my way back into the thicket and out of eyeshot. By bear-hugging a sequoia trunk I was eventually able to get to my feet. I was ready to try again.

I stepped back onto the trail. I tried to do the famous arm-swinging Bigfoot walk as best I could, considering I was trying not to fall over again. Now I heard the sounds of the kids freaking out.

“It’s Bigfoot!”

“Oh my God!”

“Aaaah!”

There were excited—if petrified—squeals and then the unmistakable sound of my nephew Jacob throwing up, which he did whenever he was scared. (Yet another thing I hadn’t taken into consideration.) It began to dawn on me that maybe Sheryl had been right about this caper all along. But if I’ve learned anything in my decades as an actor, it is that if a performance is going into the weeds, you must commit even further. I assumed the body language of a “shocked” Sasquatch as best I could and grunted like a silverback.

The reaction from the campsite was exactly the clambering ruckus I had hoped for, save the vomiting. It was time to get offstage while the getting was good. Always leave them wanting more. But as I slowly attempted to get back to the forest, I heard the sounds of tiny feet running my way. Within seconds whoever it was was right in front of me.

“Get out of here! You . . . you . . .
college student
!” said a voice I recognized as Matthew’s. Then he kicked me in the nuts.

This time, my Ohio Scream was authentic. As I doubled over, I pulled the mask down to better see my attacker. Matthew stood before me defiantly. He wasn’t going to let this hairy beast into his campsite. For all he knew, I
was
a college student, hopped up on God knows what, but he wasn’t scared and was clearly taking no shit whatsoever.

I felt a mix of love and pride for him, quickly followed by the realization that somehow I had gotten myself into a predicament where I was being attacked by my seven-year-old son in the middle of the redwoods while dressed in an ill-fitting Bigfoot costume. After a brief stare-down, Matthew stalked proudly back to the campfire. I staggered into the woods clutching my groin, stumbling into a tent I hadn’t previously noticed.

“What the hell?!” said an angry male voice from inside. “Who’s out there?!” he demanded.

When I heard him fumbling with the tent’s zipper, I tore the
Bigfoot head off and fled, crashing through brambles and chest-high ferns. I was positive I was going to be shot, and the circumstances of my death were certain to make me more famous than I ever was in life. But I was due for a lucky break and got one. No shots were fired, and the guy got frustrated by the tent zipper and gave up.

I got out of the costume, rolled it into a ball and ditched it for retrieval later. I wandered back into the campsite as if nothing had happened.

“Dad! Dad! Where were you?! We saw a Bigfoot!!” said the boys, who swarmed me, hopping into my arms and crawling all over me.

“C’mere, we’ll show you where it was! Jacob got scared and vomited, and Matthew attacked it!” said my nephew Lucas, who was still breathing heavily.

“It was awesome!” said my smallest, Johnowen, with his mischievous smile.

“Is this true?” I asked Matthew, who, true to form, was standing coolly against a tree.

“I did what I had to do,” he said evenly.

Brian and Jodi tried not to laugh, and Sheryl caught my eye and shook her head with a small smile. The boys chattered over each other the rest of the night, each trying to outdo the other in the retelling of their Bigfoot sighting. I just listened and nodded, drinking it in and hoping that I wouldn’t be in too much pain the next day. When I tucked them into bed later, they still wanted to talk about their adventure.

They talk about it still. We all do. Our family has moved on to other adventures, first serious girlfriends, college, summer internships and more vacations, some very extravagant indeed. All provide ample memories. But not all of them will have staying power. Why do we remember some events and forget others, even ones that are truly extraordinary when they happen? I’ve thought about this a lot as my
boys have grown into men, as I try to remember
everything
of our years together and yet can’t. It seems to me that the big memories, the ones that become sacred, all have two things in common. First, they were
created.
They were moments that, as a family, we had a hand in making. And also, it seems that the strongest memories all have an element of pain or discomfort that is worked through somewhere along the way. Whether it’s a kick in the groin in the redwoods or the melancholy of that first kindergarten drop-off, a memory’s potency seems to have a direct correlation to the amount of conflicting emotions it contains.

So I tell my boys that they need to say yes to life, just do it, get out and make their own memories. I tell them to think of it as a vocation; after all, we never think twice about toiling for money and yet when our time comes it won’t be our bank balance that comforts us. I tell them to not be afraid. Don’t fear the rejection that can come from putting yourself out there. Don’t avoid the boredom of the long road trip; the destination may surprise you and be worth every second. You will need something to talk about, something remembered. It might just make you interesting. It will certainly make you fulfilled. And by creating your own memories, you will always have something to share with the rest of us.

I
n life we look
to our parents to guide us, but we also need mentors, those voices that come without the baggage of being your blood. If we are lucky, we may run across someone who can fill in the blanks that our parents can’t or won’t, someone whose life experience is a shared and valuable gem. For me, that person was Bernie Brillstein.

Bernie was a large, white-bearded, loud, hilarious, opinionated, passionate connoisseur of all foods, in particular most restaurant bread baskets, and more significantly, one of the greatest and most accomplished talent managers Hollywood has ever known. He discovered Jim Henson and the Muppets. He managed most of the original cast of
Saturday Night Live
, including Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. He also represented the man who discovered them all, Lorne Michaels. Bernie produced TV and movies and even ran a movie studio himself at one point. His projects included
Ghostbusters
,
Dangerous Liaisons
,
It’s Garry Shandling’s
Show
,
ALF
,
Just Shoot Me!
,
The Sopranos
and many others. He and his partner, Brad Grey, built the entertainment industry’s most powerful management firm, whose clients included Brad Pitt, Nic Cage, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Zach Galifianakis, Courteney Cox, Orlando Bloom, Natalie Portman and many others, including me.

Bernie and Brad ran this empire with a stable of tough, smart managers, all of whom were renowned as iconoclasts and hilarious misfits. Their company was not cast with the cookie-cutter Armani-wearing drones of the big talent agencies. In fact, Bernie often wore a tracksuit to work before Carrie, his chic last wife, began insisting on a more upscale look. Bernie personally managed very few people. With so much on his plate (literally), he mainly managed those who had been there at the beginning. Henson and Belushi (until they died). Lorne Michaels, Ed O’Neill, Martin Short and one or two others.

In 1990 I hosted
SNL
for the first time. I loved Bernie the moment I met him; his was the loudest laugh during my monologue (I would later learn that that was part of his fiduciary duty). From that experience I became close to Lorne and then, through him, to Bernie. We would play doubles together, where Bernie would move surprisingly well—“like Gleason!” he would say—in spite of being close to 300 pounds. After a match one day, we had a long talk about life. He was funny and provocative, honest in a way that few are, particularly in show biz, and had a very realistic and specific idea of what I should be doing with my career. He was that rare man who, in his late fifties, was already a legend and needed no one, yet was still as excitable and engaged as a kid—he was still a lover and a dreamer. He loved talent, not “the deal” or “the press release” or the parlay into the Next Big Gig running an entertainment division for a conglomerate. He still, after all these years, loved artists. And he loved me. I asked him to be my manager and he said yes.

People who are not in show business (“civilians,” as they are called by some) often ask: “What is the difference between an agent and a manager?” It’s a good question. The most important distinction is that an agent must be licensed and can only charge you 10 percent. Truly anyone can be a manager and could charge as much as a client might pay. This is why you see so many sports figures with family members as managers bilking their clients into the poorhouse. Also, managers (in theory) used to do what agents traditionally didn’t do. Managers planned long-term. They thought about “career planning,” while the agent focused mostly on bringing any and every deal to the client.

But today, between superagent Mike Ovitz’s eighties business influence and
Entourage
’s cultural one, agents have become stars. And as an actor, when your agent becomes a star, you’d better have someone keeping them honest. And so today, everyone has a manager.

Bernie loved keeping people honest. Which was pretty rare; the standard mode of honesty in Hollywood usually went something like this:

CLIENT

I’m really upset. The studio owes me money.

MANAGER OR AGENT

It’s despicable . . . I’m gonna make a call and fix it!

CLIENT

Thanks. I just bought a new house and have another baby on the way.

MANAGER OR AGENT

I understand. How dare they! I’m gonna ream these guys at [Paramount, Universal, NBC, HBO, whatever].

I’ll call you back!

CLIENT

Thanks, man.

MANAGER OR AGENT

(to his assistant)

Get me the head of [Paramount, Universal, NBC, HBO, whatever].

The STUDIO or NETWORK PRESIDENT gets on the line.

PRESIDENT

Hello?

MANAGER

How dare my client cause you trouble like this?!

I’m trying to talk sense into him.

Meanwhile, are you green-lighting the new Channing Tatum movie?

Chan is very anxious to get started!

Bernie was different and everyone knew it. When I did a movie that became a surprise hit and the studio tried to screw me, he called the studio head with me sitting next to him. After a few pleasantries the honcho told Bernie that “there was nothing [the studio] could
do” about the money owed me. Bernie erupted. “How ’bout go fuck yourself!” (This to one of the most revered, powerful and tenured studio heads in history.)

I had my money by the end of the week.

Bernie was by no means perfect. He often had truisms that I struggled to understand, among them: “Beware of redheaded Jews,” and “Never trust people whose last names end in vowels.” He assured me that I was exempt because “the ‘e’ in ‘Lowe’ is silent!”

Bernie and I spoke every day, multiple times. Any excuse was enough for us to talk. He was interested in and loved my family. He was Matthew’s godfather. Sometimes we spoke for so long that it reminded me of the days of the never-ending teenage girlfriend telephone talks. Bernie guided me through many phases of life, marriage in particular. Never has better marital advice been dispensed by someone with so many wives.

His struggles with his weight were legend. “I’ve lost forty pounds!” he would say, yet look exactly the same. In the late nineties he and I were flying out of Aspen (a notoriously dangerous airport) on a private plane he had rented. We were with our wives, the comedy writer and
Breaking Bad
star Bob Odenkirk, David Spade and Hall of Fame TV producer George Schlatter, who also struggled with his weight.

“We have too much baggage, so I need to get a proper weight count,” said the pilot sternly.

The wives answered, then me, then Odenkirk. I could see Bernie getting nervous.

“What about you, Mr. Brillstein?” asked the pilot.