“Oh. Is this his apartment?”
“Yes, but he’s not here.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Maybe in a week or two. Who are you?”
“I’m Daniel. . . . A week or two?”
“He is upstate shooting a PBS movie. What do you want?”
“Oh. Uh, well, I met him in Washington this summer and he said I could stay with him if I ever came to New York and so I came.”
“He said you could stay here?”
“He did but I didn’t know he wasn’t going to be here. Could I please come in? I really have to pee.”
“You want to come in and pee?”
“Please?”
“Alright.”
And that was it. Bruce said I could sleep on the couch until I found a place to live, even though he had never even heard of me before that moment. Bruce, Christopher, and John Heard all shared the apartment, and took me in like the lost dog I was. I was stoned for the first time in my life within minutes of my arrival. Everyone was in their mid to late twenties, and having a seventeen-year-old in their midst was kind of like having a pet. The Brewster Hotel was a cheap place for young actors to live and there was a constant party going on. I finished my first day in New York at four o’clock the next morning, at their favorite bar, the Tap A Keg, drunk off my ass, and then passed out on the couch. I knew I was home.
They were all working actors, going to auditions, arguing with their agents, and checking their messages at the telephone answering services that everyone had back then. I think Bruce was in Hamlet and Heard was doing Streamers. Christopher came back to town but moved in with his girlfriend, Patricia Richardson, so I was able to stay at the Brewster a little longer. I signed up for a beginner’s scene-study acting class at HB Studio, a very good acting school run by Uta Hagen and Herbert Bergoff. I struck up a conversation with a talkative stranger in the lobby one day, commiserating about trying to find an apartment in the city. He was also new to town and staying at the YMCA. At that moment, as luck would have it, the actress who had played Bianca in Taming of the Shrew came into the lobby and gave me a very warm greeting. She was surprised that I had actually moved to New York and told me that there was an apartment available in her building on West 75th Street and Broadway. The talkative stranger, John Nichols, and I decided we would be roommates on the spot, got on the subway, and went straight to the building to talk to the landlord, who was a very kind old Jewish man. He said we could have the place, a two-room apartment, and when we asked how much the rent was, instead of telling us, he asked what we could afford. We told him we could pay one hundred dollars each, and he gave us the keys. John got his stuff from the Y and I got mine from the Brewster, and we met back there later that day. There was an abandoned building next door, which was some kind of whorehouse/drug den. John and I ventured in there and found two mattresses, which we dragged up to the apartment. There was no electricity, but there was heat, water, and gas, and we started living there that night. We eventually found a card table and some chairs, but to save money, we didn’t get electricity for about four or five months, just lived by candlelight at night. My dad stopped by when he was in town on business and tried to put up a good front, but I could see he was worried about the safety of the place. It was a barren crash pad, like Ratso Rizzo’s place in Midnight Cowboy, and I loved it.
I was out most of the time anyway. The lifestyle of an unemployed actor in New York fit me like a glove. Playing frisbee in Central Park in the day and going to the Tap A Keg at night, my friends all so much older and cooler than me but accepting me as a fully-fledged, functioning adult. Their apartments had actual furniture, their girlfriends were beautiful and kind, and they fed me more meals than I could ever count. There was a little outdoor newspaper stand at our corner where I could pick up some money watching the stand and selling papers when the owner needed a break. Christopher’s circle of friends included Doug and Tay Cheek, who lived in a loft in Chelsea and had a young daughter. The whole gang was my family, the best big brothers and big sisters any eighteen-year-old kid could ask for, feeding me, taking me to plays, and teaching me guitar. I went to auditions that I found in the trade paper, Backstage. They would post real jobs for actors, in regional theaters, industrial films, off-off Broadway, chorus parts, and student films—anyone who needed actors. I stood in lines at the cattle calls and got to take my swings and see how the game was played.
At HB Studios, it was time to sign up for the next semester of classes. I had a chance to audit Herbert Bergoff’s class, sit in the back, and watch the elite actors in the school do scene work with this legendary acting teacher. I still don’t know why, but when he finished the lecture at the beginning of one of his classes and the first team of actors was preparing for their scene, Herbert looked into the shadows of the last row, pointed to me, and said, “Come down here and sit next to me.” After a confused, paralyzed beat, I made my way down to his table at the edge of the stage and sat down next to him. He told me I was going to be able to see much better up there and really get a sense of what he was talking about. I told him I was grateful, although I had never even spoken to him and had no idea why this was happening. Herbert then stood up in front of the class and, being the great actor he was, made a grand gesture of taking a dollar bill out of his pocket. “I am going to give this young man a dollar. He looks like he could probably use it, but I am giving it to him as an investment. Because I think great things are going to happen to this young man and that he has a real future. You are all a witness that he has accepted this investment and I now own a piece of his talent.” The class laughed as he gave me the dollar bill. I sat through the class, pretending to pay attention, but I was so surprised by this random act of validation that I couldn’t focus on anything else besides the dollar bill in my pocket. At the end of the class, I offered to give it back, but he insisted I keep it. I wrote home to my parents telling them the story, trying to create the illusion of progress. I thought about framing that dollar, but I needed the money, so I spent it at some point. But the confidence booster he gave me, for whatever his reasons, has lasted all this time.
I signed up for Austin Pendleton’s acting class. Austin is an incredibly talented actor, director, and acting teacher as well. I knew it would be challenging, but my confidence was growing. Since I was the new kid in the class, and so much younger as well, I spent the first month or two just watching. It was a very serious class. The actors were good, and the way Austin gave them notes and direction was always so exciting and insightful. I saw how the actors made their adjustments to their performances, using the same words but with very different intentions, completely changing the meaning of the scene. And then one day, I finally got my chance to get up in front of the class. As a homework assignment (the good kind of homework), Austin had told us to be prepared to recreate three minutes of our life onstage. No dialogue or plot or story, just exist on stage and behave in as natural a way as you can. I guess I wanted to appear cool and hip in front of my older classmates, so I had decided that my three minutes would just be me hanging out in the living room, where I would roll a cigarette and just smoke it. When I got to class, I started to get really nervous, especially when I watched all of the other actors before me and realized I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING! I AM A TOTAL FRAUD! When Austin called my name, my heart jumped out of my chest. I got on the stage, pushed a couch and table to set the scene, put my tobacco and cigarette papers on the table, and began. I thought I would calm down once I started, but that didn’t happen. I started to hyperventilate and walked around the stage, trying to catch my breath. I could feel how red my face was turning, and I was so upset with myself for choking the first time in front of all these great actors. I decided to just get to the part where I roll the cigarette. Do you know how hard it is to roll a cigarette when your hands are shaking like you are inside a fucking blender? I could barely roll a joint on a good day, but under these conditions it was going to be absolutely impossible. The rolling paper was shaking, the tobacco was flying, and my ego was being crushed. I tried to gather myself and make a second attempt at rolling the cigarette, but the guy in My Left Foot would have had a better shot at accomplishing that at that moment. I was also getting a real good lesson of just how long three minutes can be. I was near tears by the time Austin said that the time was up. But to my absolute astonishment, the class broke out in applause, and Austin said how terrific I was and how real that felt. He said, “What was going on in that scene? What three minutes were you recreating?” I saw a way out of this fiasco, and I took it, lying my ass off. “Well, I was almost hit by a bus on Broadway the other day. It really scared me and I was pretty shook up and so this was the three minutes when I had just gotten back to my apartment.” Given my meltdown onstage, that scenario made perfect sense and Austin bought it hook, line and sinker. “Well, I have no notes. That was just great.” When I took my seat in the class, I didn’t feel invisible anymore. I had totally fooled them. Oh, wait, isn’t that what being an actor is? To try to totally fool people? I was good at bullshitting. I majored in it at high school. I thought, “Hmmm. I might do well at this.”
I am not sure if I ever did another scene in Austin’s class or not, because within a short time, Austin offered me my first professional acting job. He was directing a prestigious play by Robert Lowell called Benito Cereno at the American Place Theater on West 46th Street, starring Roscoe Lee Browne as a slave on a slave ship. Austin gave me the part of a sailor on the ship. I guess he had heard about my work in Taming of the Shrew because my character in this had the exact same dialogue—two or three “Aye, aye, sirs!” and maybe an “Over there!” or a “Halt!” He took a chance on me—I didn’t even have to audition. I was making forty-five dollars a week as a real actor in a real play in New York, eight shows a week. At the same time, I landed the lead role in a play at St. Clements Church, which was a very respectable off-Broadway venue at the time, and it was also located on West 46th Street but over at 9th Avenue. They arranged the rehearsal and performance schedule so I wouldn’t have to miss any shows at the American Place, but I would have to run from one theater to the other some days to be there in time. The play was terrible, but the director was very cute and became my girlfriend for a while. My mom came up and saw both plays and she got to meet Roscoe, who charmed the pants off her and told her what a talented actor I was. She knew Roscoe from television and his validation made my career seem legit in her eyes.
When those plays ended and I stopped getting paid, I had to take a job at a pharmacy on East 71st Street, delivering prescriptions and cleaning the store, but that was the last straight job I ever had. Before long I went to another audition from Back-stage, to be the understudy for David Mamet’s first New York play, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, at the famed Cherry Lane Theatre in the Village. I auditioned for David and got the job, which also included changing the sets, buying and setting the props, running the sound, and being an usher, and it paid forty-five dollars a week. The play, starring F. Murray Abraham, was a huge hit. I understudied Peter Riegert, who was dating Bette Midler at the time, so there was an electricity around the theater, and it felt like a pretty prestigious play to be involved with. To save money, I downgraded my living conditions, moving out of the shithole with John and into a closet in the apartment of a couple I had met. An actual closet. I brought the single mattress from the whorehouse up the five flights and put it on the floor of their hallway storage closet, and could only partially open the door in order to get in the room. But I only had to pay seventy dollars a month instead of one hundred dollars, and that way I could pad my bank account for the lean days that would surely come. I understudied for six or eight months, rehearsing the play once or twice a week, but Riegert never missed a show. When he finally announced he was leaving, I hoped they would ask me to step in, but they gave the part to the guy who was the understudy before me. Being the prideful idiot I was, I quit the job. I needed the money very badly, but it would have been too hard to be the understudy to the guy who was the understudy, some kind of bizarre actor purgatory.
Anyway, I was kind of a working actor. I did another off-off Broadway play. Doug Cheek cast me in a children’s TV show called Vegetable Soup, which was actually a groundbreaking show on PBS at the time, with a diverse cast and a progressive message. I got paid a couple of hundred bucks, which meant a few more months of rent. Then one day, I got an audition down at HB Studios Playwright Center, the theater connected with the school that develops new plays. The play was called Almost Men, which sounded perfect because that was just about where I was in my personal life—nineteen and almost a man. The play had already been in rehearsal for three weeks. Evidently, there had been five other actors who had been cast in the role before me—one broke his leg, a couple got paying jobs—and with the opening only ten days away, there was a bit of stress in the air when I came in to audition. The play is about four high school students from Texas who go to New York City on an adventure. It was an excellent play, very funny and natural dialogue, and mine was the lead part, playing the playwright when he was a teenager. The actors, director, and writer were all in the middle of rehearsal when I came into the theater, but stopped to do my audition. I had no idea that by the time that little play ended, I would be ready to take the next step toward becoming the kind of man I wanted to be, with a life as well as a career, with a wife, children, furniture, a car, and a community and all of the things that have happened since that day. Standing onstage to audition with me was a beautiful woman, wearing a very sexy outfit, who played the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold in the play. But wait, that’s no hooker. That’s my wife!
MEETING LAURE
Laure Mattos. Even writing it now, her name makes my heart skip a beat. Since we met that day, our lives have been bound together, and will be until the end of time. She is, and always was, smart, tough, beautiful, righteous, curious, hardworking, fun-loving, adaptable, compassionate, and overflowing with opinions and love. And you get all of that in the first five minutes that you meet her.
I guess I gave a good audition. I know Laure and I had chemistry right off the bat, and the production was somewhat desperate, so I ended up with the part. Rehearsal started immediately; the starting gun had been fired and I dove in. Once again, I was the nineteen-year-old kid and the other actors were all in their mid-twenties, with theater degrees and apartments and lives, including Laure. The rehearsals were fun and intense. Everyone else already knew the play and the staging had been pretty well blocked, so they focused on getting me up to speed. The part fit me perfectly, the cast was absolutely outstanding, the director really great, and there was a loose atmosphere, with a penny-ante poker game going at all times. Laure was one of only two women in the cast and she loved being as tough as all of the twenty-something men, a little flirty but mostly using her humor and smarts to be one of the guys. A bunch of us would take the train home to the Upper West Side together after rehearsal and go for drinks to talk about the play, so there was no opening to act on the attraction that was happening between us, but I got the feeling that after opening night that would change. And boy, did it.
The opening went incredibly well, and we were all flying high. Laure was having the cast party at her apartment, and we all splurged on cab fare from the Village all the way to West 84th Street. Laure and I were jammed in close, the adrenaline of the evening definitely pumping. We got to her apartment and, holy shit, was it nice! Big living room, nice kitchen, separate bedroom. And everything so classy. Artwork, carpets, knickknacks, books, appliances, and tons of food she had made herself. The party kicked in, the cast and crew fired up from our great opening and mixing with some of Laure’s other friends who were there as well. I was mingling, but most of my attention was focused on getting close to Laure and perhaps even kissing her. So you can imagine my surprise when at one point in the evening, I worked my way into the circle of people she was talking to and got introduced to her best friend, her old roommate, and her husband. . . . I’m just going to let you sit with that for a moment.
No need to go into too many details of our incredible courtship, but by the evidence that Laure and I are still together after all these years, it is clear that my man-musk was too powerful to resist. (Or maybe I am remembering the smell of the never-cleaned sleeping bag from Wigwasati that I had been sleeping in for five straight years.) She was married for four years to her boyfriend from college, an actor who made his living as a successful waiter at a high-end restaurant. They had had a real wedding and had made a nice home, but obviously there was something missing if there was room for me to come into her life. Our affair was secret at first. I wanted her to leave him but, of course, I had nothing to lose and she had everything. I was living in a closet, on a mattress on the floor, in a sleeping bag. I had a few hundred dollars in the bank and I was nineteen years old, six years younger than her. But we were madly, madly in love with each other and there was nothing that was going to keep us apart. We knew we were meant to be with each other, even though it didn’t make much sense on paper, because we had a sign from God. The New York City Blackout of 1977. We had snuck off to our favorite Chinese restaurant that night and were in the middle of a great meal when it all shut down. We finished by candlelight and then wandered through the crazy streets on the Upper West Side, the energy of that night amazingly electric, especially considering there was no electricity. We went back to her place until I had to go, but we both knew we were going to be together forever.
Laure needed space to figure out how to end her marriage in the best way for her, her husband, and their families. I went back to my parents’ house and I couldn’t shut up about her. I put her 8x10 resume picture on the mantel in the living room to show everyone the love of my life. My brother was afraid her husband was going to murder me. My mother assumed there must be something wrong with her if she was in love with someone like me. My dad thought she was beautiful. Interestingly, the one thing her family, her husband’s family, and even my family could all agree on was, “Why Danny?”
She and her husband parted ways amicably, and soon I moved in with her. Laure only came to my closet room one time, drunk after a party she was at with Al Pacino (who I think had hit on her), and proved her love for me by getting naked with me in the petri dish that was my sleeping bag. It made sense for me to move in because I was going to her place a lot, and now she was responsible for the whole three hundred dollars a month rent. So goodbye to my closet and hello to a real apartment. But also, goodbye to my seventy dollars a month and hello to one hundred and fifty dollars a month.
The other life-changing thing that came out of Almost Men was that I got an agent. Mary Sames lived at the Brewster and was a junior agent at a small agency. Christopher and Bruce convinced her to come see the play, and she signed me. I got a real resume picture taken and started going to a few auditions. I got a good part in a play at Manhattan Theatre Club and finally got my Actors Equity card when I understudied a play at the Public Theater, which led to the holy grail for every actor at that time—unemployment checks! Free money every week. Not a lot, but I loved it. Stand in line and get free money. I hit that cash cow every time I qualified, and it kept our heads above water. John Heard had just done his first movie and was starting to take off. Bruce got a film too, and Christopher was on Broadway; there was a code among them about having a career with integrity. There were cool places to work and cool people to work with, and I wanted to have a career like that too. I had a network callback to play the role that Jeff Conaway played in the legendary Taxi. But doing television in those days was very low class in the New York acting world, and you wouldn’t be taken seriously as an actor if you were on a sitcom. I remember being at dinner with Laure and Heard and Christopher, all discouraging me from selling myself short, even though I had nothing and could’ve made real money, and I turned it down. In hindsight, what a stupid fucking idea that was!
Laure was working in telemarketing because it paid pretty well and had flexible hours, but she was very bad at it. Her big break came when she landed the understudy role in a Broadway play directed by the legendary Hal Prince. Laure knew Hal because she had worked in his office as an assistant when she first got to New York and was there during some of his greatest collaborations with Stephen Sondheim. Unfortunately, the play was terrible and, after an all-expense paid tryout in Philly and a few good Broadway paychecks during previews, the play closed two days after opening night.
I began to lose my mind living at her apartment. I loved living with her and sharing our lives, but the apartment was making me crazy. The walls were so thin, and I believe a tap dancer and her dog lived directly above us. The rent was expensive, my unemployment eventually ran out, and I had very little savings left at all. She went back to telemarketing but hated it, and wasn’t so sure about being an actress anymore either. And we were surrounded by the furniture and dishes and rugs that were from her wedding and marriage with the other guy. In July, we found an apartment on West 78th Street that was cheaper and talked our way into it, even though we weren’t really qualified to get it. We needed the first month’s rent and another month in security, which we got by selling all of her stuff except the essentials (I had nothing to sell except my sleeping bag, and there were no takers). When we moved in in August, we realized why the rent was so cheap. It was on the third floor, right on Amsterdam Avenue, a pothole-filled thoroughfare full of trucks clanging and people fighting. And one block away was the fire station. It was insanely noisy and the trauma of that really fucked with me ever being able to get a good night’s sleep. But we loved it. It was ours. We were in it together, fully. This shitty apartment is where we would get married, have our first child, and entwine our lives together for eternity. We were more in love than ever. The only question was, “Where is next month’s rent coming from, because we are literally out of money?”
Hark, is that an angel? I believe it is.
BREAKING AWAY, AKA MY FIRST PORNO
Now that I had an agent, I was getting an audition or two for movies, but hadn’t landed anything. When I got an audition for a new film called Bambino, I showed up to an office at the ICM agency without a script or even the scene I would be auditioning with, so I was filled with anxiety because it sounded like it was going to be a dreaded “cold reading.” I was taken into an office where a very handsome and dignified English gentleman was in the midst of an intense phone conversation. This was Peter Yates, the supremely accomplished director of classics like Bullitt, The Hot Rock, and Friends of eddie Coyle. I gestured that I could wait outside but he gestured back to have a seat, so I did. When the phone call ended, Peter sat down with me and explained the premise of the movie, that it would shoot in Indiana, and the role I was right for. I don’t remember saying much of anything, just quietly dreading the moment when he would hand me the audition material and I would embarrass myself by trying to read it out loud. But that never happened. Instead of giving me just a scene to read, he handed me the whole script and told me to come back at the end of the week and we would read it then. I left confused, relieved, and excited to have a chance to actually study the script before my audition.
The script was written by the remarkably gifted Steve Tesich and would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Screenplay for the retitled Breaking Away. I had only read one or two screenplays at that point and had no idea the talent it took to write something so funny, true, meaningful, and relatable. I just knew that the story felt like me and my friends at the end of high school just a few years back, all of us having to break away from each other and our families to start our own lives. The part was a character named Cyril, who was terrible in school but a funny kid who just wants to hang out with his friends and play sports, and who felt completely like me. I had forgotten to ask which scenes I would be auditioning with, so I got familiar with the whole script to be ready for anything. I went back to the same office at the ICM agency at the time of my appointment but to my surprise, I was redirected to the conference room. The room was packed with people, a huge table in the middle, and chairs lining the walls. Everyone was mingling like it was a party, and there was an enormous buffet laid out against the windows, which overlooked all of Manhattan. I had my dog-eared script in my hand, mentally preparing myself to do my audition, only to be thrust into a fucking cocktail party. I had no idea what was going on and must have looked a little stunned. Peter quickly came over and welcomed me, explaining that we were going to all sit around the table and read the whole script. He pointed out the other actors around the room, the writer, and studio executives, and told me to help myself to the buffet. This was the best audition this starving actor had ever been to. I filled a plate with as much as I could load without being gross and found a seat at the conference table, and we read the script. The part of Cyril had some fantastic jokes and I got lots of laughs, and I nailed the emotional scenes as well because I had had the time to really learn the part. After it was over, everyone went back into party mode, thrilled at having just heard the future Oscar-winning script read out loud for the first time. I got nice handshakes from people and said hello to some of the actors, but mostly I was filling the pockets of my jacket with as much food as a could get. I mean it was free food and Laure and I were really down to our last nickels. Peter made his way over to me. “Daniel, you did great. Just terrific. I will see you in LA.” “Great. Thank you.” That was the whole conversation. I didn’t know what else there was to do or say so I probably stuffed some pickles in my socks and left.
Riding down the elevator, I was in shock from the whole experience, but those words kept ringing in my ears. “I’ll see you in LA.” What did that mean? There was a phone booth right at the corner of Columbus Circle and I called Laure immediately. I told her what had happened—the table read, the food, and those words, “I’ll see you in LA,” and she said, “I think you just got a movie,” which I had. Peter Yates had just changed my life forever. We had no money—like, none. Now I would be making eight thousand dollars, more money than I had ever dreamed of making. I would be in the union and have health insurance, unemployment insurance. I would fly in an airplane for the first time, and in First Class no less. I would be starting out my film career with a great part in an Academy Award-winning film, and I would find a mentor and a friendship with Peter that would last for the rest of my life.
I called my parents to tell them the amazing news. “Guess what? I just got cast in a movie! It’s called Bambino.”
Swear to God, this was my mother’s reaction: “Bambino? What is that, a porno?” I could take the rest of this book to dissect that comment, to try to understand why that would be her reaction. Was it the title that threw her? Was it the idea that only the lowest form of moviemakers would hire me? Did she think I was that much of a stud that I would be qualified for such work? She still has no justification for that knee-jerk reaction. Even when I finally explained to them that I was going to Hollywood to be in a 20th Century Fox film, they were skeptical, and not until the movie came out did they believe that any of what I said was true. I, too, had trouble dealing with such good fortune. I loved acting and I loved being able to make money for Laure and me but, in what would become a recurring theme throughout my life, it turned out I hated leaving home. Surprising, considering how fearless a traveler I was as a teenager, but then again, the home Laure and I had created together was the home I had always dreamed of, and it tore me up to leave. Stamped in my memory is the night before I left, crying like a baby on the sofa, and Laure hugging me and rubbing my back telling me everything was going be fine. I was scared to death of going on an airplane, of being away from her, of going to strange unknown places, and of acting in a real movie. But I did it. I got on the plane and spent a week in LA “prepping” for the film. The costumer loved how “natural” my own clothes looked—my old T-shirts and shorts and Chuck Taylors—and we went and bought replicas of my own stuff which she would distress to make them look as bad as mine. We were supposed to rehearse but never did. They gave me some cash for per diem but I didn’t know anyone in LA and needed to save every penny, so I just waited in my hotel room for a week until it was time to fly to Bloomington, Indiana, to start filming.
That’s when I finally met the rest of the cast—Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, and Jackie Earle Haley—my new best friends. They had all been in some movies already, but Jackie was the only actor I knew of, from his standout role in Bad news Bears. We hung out at the motel getting to know each other for a few days before shooting and fell into an easy friendship, one that has lasted our whole lives since then. The first scene we filmed was a fight scene in a bowling alley, us against the college jocks, which ends when I throw a bowling ball through a plate glass window, and I got my first chance to watch stunt people in action. Holy shit! It looked like what I had fantasized as a kid, people throwing themselves onto tables that would break away, smashing bottles over each other’s heads, punching, being punched, smashing shit. And then when the take was done, they set up and did it again, with the prop department bringing out more shit to break. Like a newborn colt, I was taking my first steps in my new world of being on movie sets, learning the rhythm of a shooting day. The army of trucks, the walkie-talkies, the jargon, and the strict line of command gave a militaristic order that made you feel shit was getting done. I got reprimanded for trying to help carry camera equipment and again when I tried to move one of the chairs for the actors. The movies are not an “everyone pitch in and help” type of job. Everyone has very specific responsibilities and needs to be in control of their domain so they are prepared to jump on a very fast-moving train. They don’t need me to suddenly be moving their shit around. My job is to be prepared to perform the scene after everyone else sets the table.
My part of the fight scene didn’t shoot until the second half of the day, so I had a little time to get my legs under me and try to get past the imposter-syndrome feelings that we all feel at the beginning of a big, new undertaking. But just as I was beginning to convince myself I was no longer “Danny Stern from Bethesda” but, instead, “Daniel Stern, Movie Actor,” reality came calling. Two very familiar faces suddenly came into view, riding bicycles and calling my name. I was confused at first because Breaking Away had a lot of bicycles in it and it could have been people who worked on the movie. But it wasn’t. It was two of my best friends from Bethesda, KC and Tim, guys who I hung out with in high school literally every day but who I hadn’t seen since I left for New York. They had always loved taking long bike trips together and were spending their summer vacation from college riding across the country. They had called my parents and found out what I was doing and decided to put it on their itinerary. So fucking strange that it timed out for them to land at this very moment, just before my very first shot on my very first day of my very first movie. I was caught completely off guard and didn’t know the rules, whether they could come on the set or eat the snacks, and so we just stood right there for about twenty minutes. I felt awkward and guilty that I was not up for an impromptu hangout with my old best friends. My new, pretend best friends were all playing pretend fight on a movie set and that was where I wanted to be. They didn’t really seem to want anything more than to just say hi, and it was a crazy feeling to watch them ride off, literally watching my old life fade away and my new life begin. Even though it threw me at the time, I love that it happened. God works in mysterious ways sometimes, but this lesson had the subtlety of a sledgehammer—your past informs your present, so learn to understand it as a source of knowledge and strength. When it was my turn, I picked up my fake bowling ball, fought off those college jocks like a champ, and when the time came, put the bowling ball right through the sugar-glass window on my first take, getting a nice round of applause from the crew. Cherry popped.
Since it was my first movie, I had no idea what an extraordinary filmmaking experience I was having. The Oscar-winning script was as solid as a rock, the perfect blend of comedy, action, heart, and romance. Peter’s gentle directing style got incredible performances from all the actors, including an Oscar-winning one for the super-talented Barbara Barrie. The quarry where we shot our swimming-hole scenes was a natural wonder, and the town of Bloomington felt like Bethesda. Laure came for a week to celebrate my twenty-first birthday and became fast friends with everyone. Jackie was a celebrity wherever he went and was so humble and kind to his fans. Quaid was already being a movie star, buying a mint-condition 1954 Chevy from a local and practicing his preening. His girlfriend was there the whole time and the two of them had a severe case of PDA, to the point of ridiculousness. He convinced me to open the accordion wall between our tiny dressing rooms to make one slightly bigger room, but I was forced out of the room on more than one occasion when they would start making out, with the three of us sitting on the one couch we shared, actually laying up against me. (I need to shower just remembering it.) And Dennis Christopher was working his ass off, as he was in almost all the scenes, and training on his bicycle in his down time. I got more comfortable in front of the camera, although when I see it now, I can see how Peter used my shyness and the awkwardness of my inexperience to create a very sympathetic character, which was maybe his plan from the first time I walked into that initial meeting at ICM.
