Do anything at all in the way of personal weekend enjoyment and you lose — that’s the reality of doing a 24/7 column (or at least one that aspires to same). My drive up to San Francisco from 1:30 pm last Friday afternoon to 8 pm early Friday evening had something to do with missing the story about James Caan recently walking off the set of David O. Russell‘s Nailed.
I have a comment however: if you can’t deal with rancor and eccentricity and the occasional yelling episode, you really shouldn’t be an actor. Fighting and disharmony are a part of the quilt — you can’t quarantine them and still be an artist. If everything has to be mellow and alpha every step of the way, you’re basically processing things like a child or a prima donna. Adults stand up and grapple. They give and take and sort things through, and then move on. Ranting doesn’t help anyone’s creativity and is therefore unfortunate when it happens, but Otto Preminger was said to be a dislikable prick on the set (at least occasionally) and his rep keeps going up every year.