“May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.” – Robert Heinlein
Neely: We were speaking previously of the serendipitous turn your life took when you were relaunched as an actor, but did you continue writing the whole time?
David: I did continue to write for a while. And then I reached a point where I handed in a script to Fox and I had a very distinct, eye-opening, cathartic emotional reaction to handing that script in. I felt like I had gotten out of jail. I remember thinking, “You should pay attention to this feeling.” What I suppose I was experiencing, once again, was burn-out.
Screenwriting is so rugged because you can be a very successful screenwriter without ever seeing your work on screen. I began to wonder if I was going to reach the end of my creative life and have nothing to show but a stack of scripts on my shelf that had never actually been made into movies. I wondered if these unproduced scripts were going to represent my life’s work.
With both “Available Men,” my short movie, and “Boston Legal,” I had been reminded of what it was like to actually have an audience again - to have regular Joes see the work and respond to it, enjoy it. To actually hear people laugh; to receive emails from people who had really enjoyed what I’d done was magical. It was like someone had opened a window and all this fresh air had suddenly come in again. I felt renewed and I realized that at least for the next stretch of my life, whatever I was going to do creatively, I was going to make sure I had an audience for it.
Neely: So what is it that you did do?
David: I did a couple of things. I started performing in Spoken Word shows, which are very big here in L.A. Writers perform 8 to 10 minute first person stories that are told in front of an audience. I don’t know if this form of entertainment is big anywhere else, but it’s very big in L.A. It was a huge reminder that there’s no shortage of amazing writing talent in L.A. So I suddenly found myself out there amid this talent pool and it was, again, this incredibly great shot in the arm to go out and perform a story in front of an audience and have them laugh or be moved by it in some way.. I did a show, maybe a year and a half ago, and I told a story about my ex-partner. The reaction to it was so strong that it felt like it had crossed over the line from being just storytelling to some kind of theater. I was stunned that so many people wanted to talk to me afterwards about what feelings or memories that story had generated for them.
I drove away that night wondering if it would be possible to do an entire evening of love stories. And I kept thinking about it. The idea wouldn’t go away. So finally I called up the Comedy Central Stage where I had performed a bunch of shows in the past and I said, “I’ve got this idea.” And they said, “Okay. That’s a good nugget of an idea. When you have more to show us, let us know.” So I hung up the phone and I thought, “To hell with you. In that case, I’m not doing anything!“ Five days later they called back and said, “Somebody just cancelled. We have an opening. Do you want to do your show? We trust you if you want to do it.”
By this time, I had developed this new business policy where I would say yes to anything. So I just gave them a very enthusiastic yes. And they said, “You realize that this is 6 weeks from tonight, right?” And I said, “Yes I do. I will be there with a show six weeks from tonight.” And that is exactly what happened. Six weeks later I did this show called “David Dean Bottrell Makes Love: A One Man Show.” And I stood there and told true stories from my love life starting at age 6 up to the present.
I knew I didn’t want to do a chronological storytelling show. I wanted to chop the timeline up and have it be sort of a patchwork. I also knew that I didn’t want to do a show about myself; I wanted to do a show about a subject. And that subject was going to be love and what that word means to you at different moments in your life, but also what the pursuit of love means as well. What do we give up and what do we gain. That first show at Comedy Central sold out and went over like gangbusters so we booked two more nights at another theater, Rogue Machine. Those sold out almost instantly on the word of mouth from the first show. I expanded the script a little bit; I turned it up as I went. We wound up having this incredible run at Rogue Machine where we mostly played to standing-room-only audiences. It became this little cult, underground, comedy hit. It was a remarkable experience. It was so cathartic on every level – personally, as a performer and as a writer. It was a huge lesson for me in all three departments.
Neely: As you well know, I’ve seen the show twice and I’m sure that at some point I will see it again because it’s incredibly universal, incredibly moving and you wear your heart on your sleeve and allow us to laugh with you. It’s very brave. I found it to be an extraordinarily well written, very funny, at times poignant, but always open and almost raw experience.
David: I was very fortunate to get Jim Fall as my director. He’s phenomenal and his guidance was great. Throughout the process, I stuck to what I believe about writing or acting or anything artistic, which is that you have to push a little past where you’re comfortable if it’s really going to be good. I had so little time to pull it off, then memorize it and then get out there and do it, that I don’t think it occurred to me how personal the experience was actually going to be. I was just busy trying to make sure that I drilled deep enough until I hit some truth.
The first show, it was like being shot out of a canon. I remember nothing from it other than I survived it. Comedy Central tapes those shows and about a week later they sent me a DVD. When I sat down and watched it, it was the first time it occurred to me what I’d actually said on stage in front of people; how personal it actually was. I was mortified.
Neely: Really??
David: I was. I was mortified. I suddenly thought, “Oh my god! That was a terrible mistake.” And then I realized that nobody had gone running from the room after I performed the show. And it wasn’t like any of my friends had been unable to look me in the eye after watching it. I very cautiously began to think that maybe the show might be sort of good.
Neely: My god you’re insecure!!
David: (laughing) I am deeply insecure. My intent was to stick my neck out far enough that maybe the people in the audience might feel a tiny bit more confident or comfortable with their own love lives. That’s been the most gratifying part of this whole experience: the way people quite often stay after and want to tell me a story out of their lives. And I’m honored by that response. It makes me feel better than probably anything I’ve ever done – that people seem relieved and wind up saying something like “Wow! I’m so glad you said it first.”
Neely: I have to say that the very revealing vignette about your father (and I bring that up because I don’t want people to think that the play is all about sex)…
David: The show actually has almost nothing to do with sex.
Neely: But the vignette about your father reveals more about what love actually is than anything I think I’ve ever heard or read. It was incredibly moving but incredibly deep and I don’t know how you listen to that, no matter what your relationship is with a parent and not come to a greater understanding of what’s at stake.
David: Thanks. I’ve been very surprised by the number of men who stay after the show and want to share something about that story. I almost cut that story from the show twice. (Neely groans)
Neely: It’s such a personal story.
David: It is very personal. The second time I threatened to cut it, Jim Fall, the director, said, “I will leave the show if you do.” I was a little afraid it was going to be too sad. And I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get the audience back in the mode to laugh. But I what I have found is, because it’s one of the stories in the show that’s not funny, it buys me some legitimacy. It buys me some trust with the audience that I’m not just farting around up here. I’m talking about love in the big picture, in all of its many forms including the reality that sometimes love is a take what you can get proposition. You just have to accept what people have to offer you.
Neely: It’s also about reading between the lines.
David: Yes. It is about that too.
Neely: It is going to play again, isn’t it?
David: It is. We were asked to be part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival and again we sold out all of our shows. So happily we’ve been invited back to be part of the “Best of the Hollywood Fringe Festival” in August. We’ll be back for two more shows.
Neely: Do you know where it’s going to play?
David: It’s going to be at the Asylum Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard near Vine (6320 Santa Monica Blvd.).
Neely: I know there’s been a major setback, but there should be a place for you in that disappearing medium known as the book because your show is like performed essays. David Sedaris comes to mind, and having just finished Me Talk Pretty One Day…
David: …It’s a great book.
Neely: It is but I like your stories better. Sedaris is very funny, very sardonic. He has an interesting, very skewed, diabolical take on things…
David: …yes he does.
Neely: …but there’s something missing in his work that is present in yours, and that is heart. There’s a certain distance and coldness in his storytelling, a lack of vulnerability in his writing and performing. I think he’s hilarious and of course he’s a major writer. He’s North Carolina as you are Kentucky, but he’s cracked the New Yorker East Coast bias. Somehow there has to be a way to get you in print. How have you pursued that?
David: For a while, starting around the time of the Writers’ Strike, I actually wrote a blog called “Parts and Labor” that got very popular. It was me ranting about what it’s like to be middle class in Hollywood. I’ve been in the business for a long time and I do know some very famous people, but I’m not famous. I also teach people who literally started in show business yesterday, so I feel as if I’m kind of a unique link in the chain because I stand between those two extremes. People have this impression of show business as being like “American Idol.” You get your big break and then it’s all red carpets and movie deals from then on. The reality is that the vast majority of actors, writers and directors are just the worker bees in the talent pool out here who plug along and do their thing. You might know their faces or their work but you don’t know their names. We’re the ones who sort of run the town. I just thought it was an interesting take and as I said, the blog got very popular.
I was approached by a literary agent and we actually tried to sell it as a book. I got a great response from publishers in terms of their reaction to the writing but, interestingly enough, because of the changes in the publishing world, they confessed, “We can’t really publish this book because you’re not famous.” And I said, “But that’s the point of the book. (laughing) The point of the book is about not being famous.” And they said, “Well, would you be willing to say horrible things about famous people? Because that we could probably sell.” And I said, “Actually I don’t have a lot of horrible things to say about famous people because most of my experiences have been pretty good. Plus I think that would be very detrimental to my future job prospects. So I don’t think that’s going to work.” (Neely is choking on laughter) So that has been my experience in the publishing business so far. I’m kind of hoping that maybe we can take the show to New York at some point because that might get us a little closer to the publishing world. But I’m a little stumped. So if you or your readers have any idea how I can get this thing published, they should contact me. I’d be delighted to write books. I would love that.
Neely: Peter Lefcourt, who’s a very well-known television writer and a terrific novelist (The Deal, Manhattan Beach Project, among others), has pointed out that the sales of many of his books were underwhelming, so he just published his new novel as an E-book on Amazon. I just downloaded it and will probably have started it by the time we post.
This E-book trend seems to be attracting a lot of attention and some interesting writers. Much like your play, it works on word-of-mouth. This is possibly a back-door way to mainstream publishing. I’m intrigued by the premise. They have a whole series of E-books by well-known authors that they’re advertising – they’re short books and the royalty schedule is highly advantageous to the writer.
David: Yes it is. It’s definitely a consideration.
Neely: Let’s talk a little bit more about you personally and your writing.
What and/or who were some of your influences. I mean it doesn’t come out of nowhere.
David: Like I said, up until about age 30, I had really never written so much as a postcard. However, I had been an actor in plays so I spent a lot of time saying the words of really tremendous playwrights. That was probably my first influence.
Neely: Give me some of those writers you think seeped into your work, or if they didn’t seep into your work at least made you think more about your work.
David: Speaking as a Southerner, I had always been a huge fan of that Southern School whether it was Tennessee Williams or Flannery O’Connor or Faulkner, right up to Beth Henley – all of those people who represented that dark, quirky Southern storytelling tradition.
I came from a very big family in Kentucky who were all working class people. They never seemed to have a lot of luck so the stories of what was going on were always full of drama. The latest gossip would filter through this whole complex grapevine and from the time I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to hear the latest news flash. They were very colorful people with a very dark sense of humor. There was always something juicy going on and that tradition of storytelling was just handed down to me. I think that there’s nothing funnier than the truth.
Neely: As Bill Cosby said, “Tell the truth and the funny will come.”
David: Yes. Exactly. At one point we were trying to do a sizzle reel for the one man show to try to promote it and it was almost impossible to do because there are no jokes in the script. Hence no punch lines that make sense out of context.
Neely: No. The show is storytelling.
David: It is. So I guess, in a weird sort of way, my biggest writing influences came from my family members.
Neely: What about favorite authors growing up? All of the Southern ones that you mentioned, but any others?
David: I’m going to confess to you that I was not a terribly literate kid (laughing).
Neely: When I was a kid, I wouldn’t read if you shoved a gun in my mouth. By junior high, though, I would read plays because they went faster and were a lot shorter than books.
David: I know. When I went into drama club in high school, I started reading plays for the first time. They were wonderfully, mercifully short, which helped me to read them. I would go to the library and read from these collections of “The Greatest Plays of 1937-38” or whatever. Sometimes I would camp out in the library and read Moss Hart or the big Arthur Miller plays, all the things that were standard fare for high schools. So those were the first things that I had the patience as a teenager to sit down and read.
Neely: What are you reading now?
David: I was afraid you were going to ask me that. The thing I’m reading right now is Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids.
Neely: It got great reviews.
David: I started it, I got about a third of the way through and then got stalled; it’s on my bed stand right now. So that is what I’m currently reading – slowly.
Neely: What was the last book you read?
David: I hate to confess that I took time away from Just Kids to read this trashy book – I’m trying to think of the name of it. I think it’s called Full Service and I’m not sure I want this to appear in print (Neely bursts out laughing). But between you and me, it’s this guy named Scotty Bowers. When I first came to L.A. a million years ago, Scotty was my maintenance man who was always fixing things around my apartment complex. And people in the know would whisper, “You know… back in the day Scotty was a big hustler with movie stars.” After he got out of the marines…
Neely: Oh!! That guy. He and his “actions” are part of the public record. I confess that I eyed that salacious book myself. Yeah, yeah. He claimed he had sex with Cary Grant.
David: Not just Cary Grant. According to him, he did it with pretty much everybody. So anyway, I sort of knew these stories about Scotty and then his book just came out so I had to buy it and read it.
Neely: How about favorite films, past and present.
David: Oh geez…
Neely: I know, but don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you your zodiac sign.
David: Thanks for that. Wow. That’s a tough one. I know I’ve seen some wonderful films since, but whenever anyone asks me my favorite, I always say “American Beauty.” I was just so taken with that movie; how the filmmakers had managed to have so many funny elements coexist with so many frightening and upsetting elements and that it could all be woven together so well into one product. It just spoke to me. There was something about it and how it was ultimately about this search for meaning.
Neely: Well I can see exactly what you gravitated toward because it’s so much in your own writing.
What was the last movie you saw?
David: (already laughing) “Magic Mike.” I will go on record as saying that I liked it as a movie. Obviously it has its charms with who its stars are and how little they’re wearing, but I thought Steven Soderbergh did a great job directing that movie. In lesser hands it could have been “Showgirls Part II.” (Neely laughs uproariously). And it wasn’t. It was not that.
Neely: What are you watching on television right now?
David: (again, laughing in anticipation) I’m embarrassed to say “America’s Got Talent.”
Neely: (laughimg) You should be embarrassed.
David: For the past few months, I’ve been so swamped under that I haven’t had any real time to watch TV. Apparently, “America’s Got Talent” is on like 5 nights a week now; it’s on every time I turn on the television. It isn’t so much the talent that I love as the way it’s spun to get you to cry when they either advance to the next level or get cut. It’s masterfully done.
Neely: And you like the manipulation.
David: Yes, I do kind of like the manipulation.
Neely: What about scripted shows in the past?
David: I’m sure I’ve seen every episode of “Mad Men.” I’m just a fan of that show and have always loved it. But the last show I was obsessed with was season 2 of “Justified.” Wow!
Neely: That is my favorite show on television. So you saw the Margo Martindale episodes.
David: Yes. And ironically, I had just become friends with Margo Martindale right before it started to air, so I was able to communicate with her every week after watching it. For openers, I’m from Kentucky and I always loved Elmore Leonard. You can actually add him to my list of favorite authors although I have not read the original short story that “Justified” was based on.
Neely: I have (“Fire in the Hole”) and Graham Yost did the most spectacular job of molding it to the needs of television; adapting it without losing its original flavor. It was a home run.
David: Having come from that neck of the woods and having grown up in those rural counties in Kentucky, there was not a lot of law enforcement. Of course, in those days they didn’t have the meth labs to deal with…
Neely: …it was moonshine.
David: …it was moonshine in those days and stolen goods. I do specifically remember a couple of things going down that were not avenged by law enforcement but were dealt with “privately.” Within that community there was an inherent understanding that you all locked arms and protected each other. You didn’t talk out of school. I don’t remember anybody teaching me this, but one of the first lessons I remember knowing from the time I was six years old was that you never tell the truth to a law enforcement officer. Never.
Neely: They got that really right, didn’t they.
David: They totally got that right.
Neely: Yost captured the atmosphere perfectly.
David: I love watching it. The one thing that I will say is that, coming from Kentucky, and I mean no disrespect, but the population of Kentucky is nowhere near as beautiful as the actors they have on that show (Neely and David burst into cackles).
Neely: Since one side of my family hails from Western Tennessee (on the Kentucky border), you got that right! (still laughing)
David: That season with Margo and that particular storyline; the way that it unfolded, it was Shakespearean.
Neely: I think that’s exactly what they were going for. It’s “King Lear” and “Richard III” mashed up with “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Romeo and Juliet” In Greek mythology terms, it kind of makes you understand why Medusa would eat her young (especially if they were morons like Dickie and Coover).
That actress, the role, the story lines… it becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
David: The last scene of the season two finale literally took my breath away. That final line Margo uttered stunned me. Coming from that world, I knew exactly what she meant. Maybe some people were confused by it but I knew exactly what she meant at the moment…
Neely: What was the last line?
David: “The mystery.”
Neely: She was just brilliant and for anyone who hasn’t seen the 2nd season of “Justified,” Netflix it. I doubt you’ll see a better, more subtly commanding and complex performance than the one given by Margo Martindale (who won the 2011 Emmy for her portrayal of Mags Bennett). I also have a soft spot for the marvelous and under used Linda Gehringer who played the role of Raylan’s stepmother , the hard as nails put upon wife of the larcenous Arlo Givens, Raylan’s father.
But I’ve kept you long enough.
David: No, no, no. This has been delightful.
Neely: I pay people to say that. Thanks so much David. I hope we talk again soon.
