Being a famous movie star, it’s easy to forget sometimes that there are normal people out there, too. Like Hunter Biden. The former president’s son was talking to someone named Andrew Callaghan about his life, and more. I don’t know. I didn’t see it. I didn’t have to: the set was abuzz today in the worst way. I heard it from The Guardian, The New York Post, The Telegraph, Variety, Deadline, and even The Hill. Biden, on George Clooney: “Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him and everybody around him… I don’t have to be fucking nice. No. 1, I agree with Quentin Tarantino… Fucking George Clooney is not a fucking actor. He is a fucking, like… I don’t know what he is. He is a brand.” How did Clooney catch a stray? Apparently he wrote an article for The New York Times last summer urging Joe Biden to drop out of the race. I guess he did? Again, I don’t know: I’m a rooster. I don’t pay attention to your world unless it aggresses upon me.
Mr. Tarantino keeps asking no one in particular, “Why is fucking Hunter Biden bringing me up in a fucking interview?” These people love four-letter words; I find it rather uncouth. “They didn’t even get my fucking WORDS right!” Indeed, Mr. Tarantino wasn’t even quoted directly—we’ll have to rely on Clooney’s account. “Quentin said some shit about me recently, so I’m a little irritated by him. He did some interview where he was naming movie stars, and he was talking about [Brad Pitt], and somebody else, and then this guy goes, ‘Well, what about George?’ He goes, he’s not a movie star. And then he literally said something like, ‘Name me a movie since the millennium.’ And I was like, ‘Since the millennium? That’s kind of my whole fucking career.’ So now I’m like, all right, dude, fuck off. I don’t mind giving him shit.”
Mr. Tarantino doesn’t remember saying this (in public). “This is just like Spike Lee. Spike Lee disrespected me in the Nineties, he cast me in one of his fucking movies and then trashes me the same year.” For what, sensei? “For the same old shit I’m always getting.” The language. “Yeah, and my right to use certain words.” George Clooney is upset by the language in his scripts? “No, Spike—I mean, wait… I was talking about… what was I talking about… hmm… ugh… fuck, I totally lost my train of thought.” George Clooney, not a movie star. “I don’t know where he heard that. Maybe I was on some podcast. But I don’t remember saying that in public. Even though it’s true.”
Mr. Fincher was so upset by the Biden story that I avoided him for the rest of the day. I’m not gonna be around for that frustration. Mr. Tarantino is more pensive, not at all angry, despite the language. I kept to his side as he regaled some of the crew with diva stories of Clooney on the set of From Dusk Till Dawn. I won’t repeat them here, this rooster doesn’t tell tales out of school. I was just happy that My Sensei had regained his permanent passion and jolly good cheer. I didn’t see Mr. Fincher for the rest of the day; he was probably doing some “pre-viz” and concentrating on finishing the casting. We’re less than a week away from the first day of shooting and not all roles have been cast. Apparently, that’s “the norm” on big Hollywood productions like this: they can afford to spend a 16-hour day getting 30 seconds of footage.
But the Clooney/Biden/Tarantino kerfuffle froze everything. Reporters descended on the set for the first time—our cover was blown! Someone blamed me, a production assistant, and I spur-clawed him into submission and made sure he was no longer part of the production. Los Angeles is lousy with production assistants, we’ll be fine. At one point, My Sensei was interrupted in his story time hours by “legal,” and when he returned he was no happy camper. He was like Mr. Fincher: all work, no play. Bennington? A dull boy. I mean man. I mean rooster. Roosters are men. I’m a man, as well. But I’ll never lay down my hackle. This is what is known as “my mantra.”
“You are The rooster, Benny.” My Sensei doesn’t always encourage me, at least not openly. Maybe it was the stress, maybe it was the news of the day. But he’s still calling me Benny. Who knows, I might even replace Brad Pitt. Stay tuned for set photos next week, as long as this day remains a brief, if aggravating, glitch in an otherwise glorious production.
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