Why did I do it? Coz it’s fun. When I first had the idea, Casey was like, dude, you serious? It could hurt your image, y’know. I was like, dude, it’ll be the greatest movie ever made. I’ll get a legit reason to do all those things I always wanted to do on camera. People love to see other people go off the rails- why do you think Linds is such a hot thing? And when they see Me- Mr Nice Guy, pull a Wacko Jacko, they’re just going to lap it all up. And I’ll get the Oscar I deserve, the Oscar that should have been mine but went instead to that huckster Hoffman.
It was fun, it seriously was. Ok, except for the beard part- that was hard. I just didn’t want to grow it, but Casey said nobody would take me seriously if I didn’t have an unkempt beard. Oh, there have been so many times I’ve stood with a razor at my throat wanting to cut the frigging fuzz away, but all the camera crew would chant ‘Joaquin for Oscar” and I’d reluctantly throw the razor away. The rest was easy, though. I completely freaked Letterman out; the old doozy had no idea what I was up to. There was a small thing the cameras didn’t catch: I put my hand on the old geezer’s lap and stroked it a bit, just before the cut to commercial. Oh, you should have seen the look on his face! It was to die for. We wanted to put the clip in the movie, but Letterman called us up and begged and begged and we thought, ok, gramps is going to die in a short while, so let’s honor his last wish.
So, I’m getting back to the regular Hollywood grind soon. I’m looking at scripts, but, you know what, I’m bored by the ones I’m getting- biopic, vagabond, mid-life crisis dude. After the phenomenal success that I’m Still Here has been, I’m looking for something radically different. We can’t pull off the destructive-Hollywood-star thing again, obviously, but I’m game for whatever you throw to me. So, if you’ve got any ideas, like a mind-breaking script or something, write in to me. Maybe that’ll be my next big thing- doing a B-grade movie written by a shoddy amateur.
J.P.
Image sourced from here
