THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS? . . . GETTING FIRED!

I loved our sweet little house on Highridge Drive in Beverly Hills Post Office. I was so lucky to have found this little oasis. It was a last-minute decision not to move to Woodstock, which was going to be the cure for the claustrophobia and pressure caused by living in Manhattan for twelve years, and our house on the top of the canyon felt like we had moved to the country. But our little, secret, natural hideaway had been discovered by rich assholes bound and determined to make it theirs, and in doing so make it not little or secret or natural or a hideaway.

Some pretentious prick bought the house next door and started doing major construction to transform a modest house into a palace, including drilling pylons right next to our house to support the upper deck swimming pool he was putting in. It drove me insane. Pastureland a block away, where sheep used to graze, was plowed over to build Beverly Park, now one of the most exclusive gated communities in the world, home to Sylvester Stallone, Eddie Murphy, oil barons, and such. We started looking around LA for what would be the equivalent of Woodstock, a couple of hours outside of town where we could buy a house in nature, with a lot of space and privacy. We looked in Ojai and Santa Barbara, but they were too expensive and had already been discovered by the pompous glitterati anyway.

Laure’s family had a tiny, nine-hundred-square-foot summer cabin in the middle of a national forest in Lake Tahoe that we got to use for a couple of weeks each year, another little, secret, natural hideaway, with no entitled assholes in sight. The water was pristine and icy, and we spent every day at the beach, playing and swimming with the kids. This year in particular was fantastic. Our kids started hanging out with some other kids on the small beach, and Laure and I got to be friendly with their parents and grandparents. We had cookouts and got to know each other and told them of our desire to move out of LA. One of the families was from a place called Half Moon Bay, a small town right on the beach, an hour away from San Francisco, with good schools and modest prices. It sounded like the perfect town for us but was probably too far from LA to move to. But I decided to take a peek at it on the drive home, and the amazingly generous people from the beach gave us the keys to their house so we could spend the night there. Since it was going to be a lot of extra schlepping, Laure and the girls took a plane home, and Henry and I drove the loaded-up Chevy Suburban to Half Moon Bay. It was spectacular, with a Pacific Ocean beach with huge rock formations. The farms on the hillside were like out of a painting. We drove through the neighborhoods, by the little league field and the elementary school, and I could really envision raising our family there. The house we stayed in was in a very nice, suburban-feeling neighborhood, and Henry and I went to dinner that night at a place called The Distillery, right on the water. We decided to eat on the outdoor porch, with the waves crashing and mist overtaking us. It was an incredible night with Henry, but I was really wishing Laure was there so we could have shared the absolute romance of this day and night.

The next morning, we packed up for the drive to LA, and as we passed through town, I spotted a real estate office and decided to pick up one of those real estate listing magazines to bring home to Laure, just so we could fantasize about it together. I spoke to a very nice realtor there. The prices for homes with land were so affordable compared with Ojai and Santa Barbara, the schools were great, and it was so easy to get to the San Francisco airport and get a plane to LA if you had to. She told me of a house in an even smaller town a few miles up the coast called Moss Beach. This house was on seven acres, overlooked the ocean, and was seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She asked if I wanted to go look at it right then, since I was there, just to see, and that is what we did. Moss Beach was a tiny town that consisted of one block with a bar, a pizza place, and a video store, all a person really needs. We drove up the hill above the town to a dirt road and took that small road until it came to a dead end and some impressive-looking gates. The gates opened, and an incredible, tiled villa and guesthouse laid out in front of me, with the Pacific Ocean right below. We went inside, and it was like out of a magazine—huge windows, professional kitchen, bedrooms galore, and an interior courtyard, complete with swimming pool. There was a sauna and steam room, but my mind was officially blown when I got to the “his and hers” bathrooms and the “his” bathroom had a urinal. Who ever heard of having a urinal in your house? It all made me laugh, especially the thought that all of this could be had for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I called Laure from a pay phone and told her I thought I found our new house. We talked about it all week and flew up the next weekend so she could see it. She was blown away by it too, and we felt our vision of living in a small town in the countryside with a bit of land was finally within our reach. We bought it the next day and started making plans to move in time for the kids to start the new school year there, which was only about six weeks away.

I was prepping for directing an episode of The Wonder Years—scouting locations, casting, scheduling—when I got a call to go in as soon as I could to audition for a new Billy Crystal movie called City Slickers because Rick Moranis had just dropped out and the movie started shooting very soon. I got the script delivered to my house that night. Like Home Alone, the script was absolutely perfect, full of great characters, inventive, truthful, insightful, action-packed, and with fall-on-the-floor laughs. The character was Phil, a sweet, self-loathing guy with a terrible wife, who had so many good moments of comedy, heroism, and friendship over the course of the movie. By the time I finished the script, I wanted this one a lot. I went in the next day and, holy shit, there was Billy Crystal! And a bunch of other people who I would end up knowing well but at the time were a blur because, holy shit, I was going to read the scenes with Billy Crystal! I knew this character very well, the jokes were natural to me, the rhythms perfect, and the audition felt like a home run. Sure enough, I got the job. It was shooting in Colorado and New Mexico in ten days, but I needed to start right away with horseback riding lessons at a ranch in Griffith Park, because so much of the movie takes place on horseback. My agent got me four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a surprising and enormous leap in salary. The tough part was it was going to take three and a half months to shoot. I was in almost every scene, so there would probably be no time for any trips home, and it was right when we were supposed to be moving to our new house in Moss Beach. But I had to say yes, and I had to say it fast. The producers at The Wonder Years were great and said of course to take the job and that I could direct a different episode when I got back. The nice thing was that they agreed to replace me with my first assistant director, who would finally get his break to make the leap to being a director. Before I knew it, I was in Griffith Park staring at TJ, who had been chosen to be my horse in the movie.

Horses and I do not get along. I have already told you of my death-defying horse-riding experience on the set of Samson and Delilah in Durango, Mexico. The only other time I had been on a horse was when Laure and I were on our honeymoon trip to England. We took a very freaky side trip to the Moors, land of ghostly spirits (check out my episode of the TV show Ghost Stories), but it got dangerous when the owners of the inn we were staying at gave Laure and me their trail horses and sent us on our way. The horses were very old and slow, and I started to relax, letting go of my PTSD. Laure was a natural on the horse (and is now an accomplished rider), and it all felt right out of a postcard or TV commercial—young lovers on horseback, sun shining, flowers blooming. But things changed rapidly when, from out of nowhere, a helicopter came tearing across the landscape, flying as low as a crop duster, and buzzing right over us. Both of our horses reared up on their back legs, something they probably hadn’t done in fifteen years. I held on for dear life and watched my wife hold on for hers. The horses bolted, galloping across the moors. Luckily, they were old, so they ran out of gas after a couple hundred yards. We got off those fucking horses, walked them back to the bed and breakfast, and drank whiskey with the weirdos in the bar until our nerves calmed. The point being, horses and I don’t get along.

TJ was different. TJ was a real movie horse. He had done a lot of movies, maybe more than me. His trainer was Jack Lilley, a legendary horseman and stuntman. I told Jack my bad experiences and fears, but he didn’t care. He knew I had to learn to ride because the movie started shooting in a week and the first scenes were on horseback. Billy, Rick Moranis, and Bruno Kirby had all been training for months to prepare for the riding, and I had a lot of catching up to do. Jack basically took me on a pony ride, leading TJ around the arena and teaching me the fundamentals of how the gas pedal, brakes, and steering wheel work on these things. I held on tightly to the horn of the saddle and Jack kept telling me to let go, because “You can’t ride like that,” but my survival instincts were on high alert. Eventually I got the reins and walked TJ around the arena by myself. Well actually, TJ walked me. All I had to do was hold on. They had picked the mellowest horse in the stable, and he knew just how to handle me. It’s supposed to be the rider who is the leader, in control and command of his horse, but every horse I have ever been around can read me easily and knows they are in charge of the situation, and TJ was no different. TJ was a pro. He knew his job. Jack and his trainers would tell TJ to do something, and he would do it. He broke into a trot when Jack clicked his tongue and stopped when he raised his hands. I moved the reins to guide him through a figure-eight pattern, but he already knew what he was supposed to be doing. My first-day confidence was building. I got a tiny glimmer of how this could work, although knowing all the herding of cattle, stampedes, and galloping that were written into the script, I was still very intimidated. But not as intimidated as when Billy and Bruno arrived at the arena.

Billy and Bruno had done When Harry Met Sally together, playing best friends, and the friendship stuck. Billy and the writers, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, had written the part of Ed especially for Bruno. So just like the story, these two best friends were living their fantasy, getting horseback training from the best in the business and making a real Western movie. We kibitzed for a few minutes, and then they hopped up on their beautiful horses, already saddled by the wranglers, and took off. I watched them gallop and trot, even ride backwards. I watched them herd and rope cows. These guys had been training a lot and were proud of all they had accomplished. They tried to encourage me, but I obviously had a long way to go.

I was no better the second day than I was the first, which is to say ridiculously bad, especially considering the riding challenges that were coming up very quickly. The director, producers, and writers came out to Griffith Park to watch and work that day and I got to know everyone a bit more. The one issue seemed to be that I looked a little too young. We were all supposed to be having a mid-life crisis. Billy and Bruno were both ten years older than me, and everyone felt I didn’t look “mid-life” enough. I tried on some glasses, which helped make me look a little older, and that seemed to solve the problem.

When I went for riding lessons on the third day, they had a makeup trailer in the parking lot. Billy and Bruno were doing tests on the progression of how dirty they should get over the course of the film. Evidently people were still a little nervous about how youthful I looked because the makeup folks tried some aging makeup on me. They put lines around my eyes, which I thought looked pretty fake. They tried more lines on my forehead, which looked even worse. But it hit an absurd level when they said they wanted to try a bald cap on me. I said I didn’t think that was going to work. They agreed, but insisted I try it, just to show the producers. They squeezed a terrible-looking bald cap over the top part of my head, leaving my hair on the sides and the back showing. I guess they were going for the classic Larry David look, but with the aging makeup on my eyes and forehead, the look was much closer to Bozo the Clown. While Billy and Bruno were trying on their sexy, dirty cowboy look, I was looking in the mirror, horrified and embarrassed, thinking how terrible it would be to ruin such a wonderful script and movie by looking like I came straight from Ringling Brothers. The producers knocked on the door and said they wanted to speak with me, so I stepped out of the trailer to show them how ridiculous this look was. They agreed it was not the right look but said that was not what they wanted to talk to me about.

“We don’t know if you know this, but the reason Rick Moranis left the film was that his wife has been diagnosed with a very serious form of cancer and Rick left to be with her.”

“Oh my God, I had no idea.”

“Yes, it’s terrible. The thing is, he’s changed his mind. He wants to come back to the movie. He and his wife decided it would be best for Rick to keep working and carry on with life. And so he wants to come back and be in the film.”

“Oh, okay. So I guess I’m out?”

“We are so sorry. You would have been great. And thank you for being so understanding.”

“Sure, I understand.”

I mean, what was I going to say? It was such a loaded situation. It was so embarrassing to be fired on the spot with no warning and for no offense, and having the bald wig and clown makeup on felt like the perfect, humiliating costume to receive the news in. I couldn’t even go back in the trailer. I grabbed my stuff and got in my car, where I pulled off the bald cap, wiped off my face, and drove home.

The first thing I did was call the folks at The Wonder Years and tell them I had been let go and wanted to come back and direct the episode I had left. The first AD and producers were mensches and said of course, because they knew how much it hurt to have the movie fall apart and how important it was for me to get back to work rather than stew in my own juices. I went back to work the next day and dove into prep again. In some ways, it was a relief. I had been about to ditch Laure and force her to pack up the whole house, move the family to the new house in Moss Beach, and start the kids in a new school all by herself. Now we could all start that new life together.

Two days later, I was at home when my agent called and said that Rick had changed his mind and was dropping out of the film again. They wanted me back. I was stunned, exhausted, and thoroughly confused. My agent said we might be able to get more money, but that was not the issue.

“The issue is I am back directing, which I love, and I can’t be so flaky and leave again. It was wrong to leave Laure with all the responsibility and logistics of the huge move, especially since the whole thing was my idea to start with. And besides, I have my stupid pride. It was so embarrassing the way the firing happened that I don’t really feel like going back. I have many other commitments and I am exhausted, and therefore please tell them that I pass, that I am not going to just pack up everything at the drop of a hat and leave my responsibilities.” I hung up with my agent and felt the real weight of how tired this rollercoaster had made me. I went into the bedroom and fell asleep. To this day, I remember it as one of the deepest and most energizing naps I have ever had.

When I woke up, I realized what a stupid decision I had made! My pride had made me shortsighted, just like it did when I left Home Alone. What an opportunity I was throwing away—an incredible part, the best actors, a ton of money, experiences I would never have any other way—and my wife was willing to shoulder unfathomable burdens to see that the family was taken care of while I pursued these dreams. I came out of the bedroom to messages on my answering machine from Billy, the director, the producers, and my agent, all begging me to reconsider. I was already planning to beg them to take me back, so it was nice to be begged as well. I called everyone back, told them what a great nap I had, that I was an idiot, and that I couldn’t wait to get started. I once again backed out of my directing job at The Wonder Years, which was embarrassing, but the First AD couldn’t have been happier. The next day I packed up my stuff and had a very nice panic attack and cry, with Laure and the kids comforting me and telling me that everything would be fine. I took a small plane to Durango, Colorado. Upon arrival, the teamster driver didn’t take me to the hotel or the production office, but instead drove me into the beautiful mountains outside the town. I was met by Jack Lilley, a few other wranglers, and TJ, saddled up and ready to go. The sun was setting as Jack led us on a trail ride into God’s country, TJ surefooted and steady on the tight mountain trails, and me holding on to the saddle horn for dear life.