Life in Hollywood and Los Angeles

Believe me, there is a lot more to life than being umbilically tied to a telephone, waiting for an agent’s or a producer’s call to stave off the fear and insecurity that permeates Hollywood — the fear that one might never work again. I was tired of justifying a life defined by ratings, box office, image, worry, and a depleted sense of self. I had to get out.

I sat atop my mountaintop mansion [in Los Angeles] with more money than I had ever seen in my life. I’d bought my parents a home. But then instead of going after a career, I started thinking, getting involved with the question ‘is that all there is?’ I was … tired. Tired of all the bullshit and tired of the strangling of the telephone cord, waiting for the phone call. It’s just not really an ideal town in which to exist as a human being, so it’s not really a place that I wanted to be. It’s not the end of the world, but you can sure see it from there.

I like to taste and touch and feel and smell, and there’s just something about that way of life that doesn’t fit with me. But I guess there’s a kind of a diabolical lure of Hollywood. Part of everybody has a feeling about the place one way or the other. It’s the lights and the beautiful women and the money and the fame and the riches. But very few people are prepared when it comes time to produce, and that’s the sadness about Hollywood. There’s also another truism about that place, and that is that you can have anything you can ask for there — if you have something that they want.

I never realized I could be thrown around by Hollywood so much. It came as a total shock to me. I never thought the value of a person could change overnight. … There was no one bigger than me on this planet, then all of a sudden it was over. It hurt then and it still does. I still reel at the terrible rejection. … After 23 years in Hollywood, I am still having to prove myself. But in Britain there is still loyalty. In America, it’s more cut-throat.