Top 10 actors (giving it 5 minutes of thought, sure I left a few out) of My-Time, not ranked:
Kevin Spacey
Anthony Hopkins
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Jeff Bridges
Benicio Del Toro
Brian Cox
Christopher Walken
Daniel Day-Lewis
Gary Oldman
Liam Neeson
Al Pacino
Robert De Niro
Jack Nicholson
John Travolta
Johnny Depp
I love movies. LOVE. I love entertainment. Who doesn't?
What intrigues me about entertainment is how fascinated we are with fiction. We buy and buy and buy lies, watching them via Netflix, BlueRay, Red Box, VHS, and Blockbuster and at the movie theater over, and over, and over again, and millions of us do it, everyday. Why do we want to hear a story so badly? More on that later.
Even more intriguing to me is how obsessed we then become with the non-fictional people participating in acting the story out, i.e. the fame we create for the actors and actresses that played a part in the movie.
Why are we so in love with fame? Why, if I am 30 lbs. overweight with a shotty complexion and crooked smile, do I go unnoticed at a classy bar, however dodge offers from dimes if I am famous? What is it about that f-word that overwhelms us with desire?
Is it money? Is it mystique? Is it that the person overcame the large probability they would not make it? Is it the status? Is it the fact that everyone else wants them too?
When I was working for Atlantic Records circa 2004, I was backstage before Staind was to perform at the Mesa Ampitheater in, well, Mesa, AZ. They never quite achieved Metallica-esque fame, but they sold a boatload of albums, and there was never much room at any show I ever attended. There I was, backstage, hanging with Mike Mushok, noting guitar tips, when someone in the band pulled out a fat spliff and lit up 10 feet to my right. Fine by me, I think the shit should be legal, 100%. But I couldn't help but notice the Police Department / Security standing no more than 15, maybe 20 feet away, clearly within range of the scent and clearly noting a visual, ignoring the fact that the same law that millions of "Staind-less" Americans have broken and subsequently experienced penalty was
clearly being broken right in front of them, and they did nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
If it were anyone else, literally anyone else but anyone "in the band", and not just any band, a "famous" band, it would have been a flurry of radios + stampedes + threats + handcuffs + quarantines + arrests + confiscations + back-up + charges + tickets + flashlights + bookings + + + + + ...
Nada. There we sat, like in the circle with Eric Forman in his basement in That 70's Show, watching the clouds engulf our heads, pretending it was normal, because anything but playing it cool wasN'T.
I've got more stories like that, only they star Linkin Park, Jason Mraz, Ice Cube, among others.
I don't have the answer. But I love thinking about it. Only fame can blind a dime from the beer gut, stained teeth, and cratered forehead. Only fame can diffuse a cop's constant urge to abuse his power and exercise the law to its fullest extent. Only fame highlights the actor for portraying the heroic characteristics of the non-fictional being over the actual being himself. Only fame can cause everyone who ever treated you average to start kissing your ass right after your big break. Only fame can justify ridiculous compensation for minute quantities of labor. Only fame allows people with absolutely 0 economic threats who destroy their health via substance abuse profit from their recovery. How many bums who bounce back from heroin addiction make the NY Times Bestseller List?
Only fame.
So fascinating.
It blows my mind. Share your comments. What is it? Why does it literally convert another human being, another bag of saline solution and organs and flaws and closet-ed skeletons and substance dependencies and dying brain cells into an icon, a pillar of social status and achievement?
I heard once that it's the "aura of invincability" that attracts people to fame, i.e. cops wafting second hand Kush their way before "It's Been Awhile" goes amplified throughout downtown Mesa, Arizona, all because, well, quite frankly, "it's Staind, man..."
fame...
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