Transcript: Famous vs. Unfamous
Rob Long on the end of 'bankable' stars
This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler.
Movie stars and aristocrats, goes the saying, are just like you and me. They all put their trousers on one leg at a time.
That may be true — I’ve never been close enough to either to get a good look — but one thing is certain: if there was an easier or more expensive way to get those trousers on, celebrities and aristocrats would be doing it that way.
Not too long ago, I watched a certifiable move star — a pretty internationally famous actor — record a public service announcement. He walked up to the microphone which was suspended from a long boom — if you’re a fan of old-time radio, you’ll know exactly what this looked like — and adjusted the lectern in front of him, cleared his throat a moment, and then, without looking behind him, he simply extended his right arm outwards and slightly back.
His fingers opened, and suddenly a bottle of cold water appeared in his hand. His assistant, in a constant state of ready anticipation, knew that his boss would reach out for the bottle and had it prepared and handy to slip into his fingers.
His boss, the movie star, never bothered to check to see if the bottle was coming. His eyes never left the lectern. He just reached out, grabbed a bottle of water out of thin air, took a long sip, reached back without looking, dropped it without hesitation in the waiting hand of his assistant, looked up from his script and asked, quietly, “So, are we ready?”
Now that, I thought to myself, is what living in a bubble must be like.
It’s easy to forget, for most of us, how all-embracing life in a cocoon is for the lucky few. There’s always someone wondering what, exactly, you might need to make yourself happy. There’s always someone thinking about the water you might need to drink, or the shoes you might like to wear — whatever suddenly occurs to you, whether by whim or necessity, is already planned and anticipated and, in the case of my movie star friend and his assistant, ready to pluck out of the air, unseen.
It happens quickly. I remember not too long ago, when my movie star friend was just another aspiring actor in Hollywood — a veteran of unsold television pilots, low-rent movies, and a thousand unsuccessful auditions. I remember consoling him when he lost a big role to another actor. I even remember counseling him to stick with it, to keep hustling, when he was ready to give it all up and head to law school. But after two good roles in two blockbuster films, the cocoon opened up and swallowed him whole. He now lives in a world of assistants and magically appearing bottles of water.
It also goes the other way.