Two Cut Questions from My Interview with Doug Jones

A month ago, I was fortunate enough to interview Doug Jones, the amazing actor who appeared as Abe Sapien in "Hellboy" and "Hellboy II", Pan in "Pan's Labyrinth", the Silver Surfer in "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer", and more. The edited interview appears here,

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38366 as well as here,

http://audreymariebrown.googlepages.com/aintitcool

I thought that AC readers might appreciate hearing just a couple more details from the interview that were simply cut for the length of the interview. The following are bits and pieces of my interview with Doug Jones...

Regarding Bette Midler

"Here's a little story I can break into, when I was working on 'Hocus Pocus' it was 1992, and a couple years before that, I finished up my few years of my 'Mac Tonight' campaign for McDonalds. One of my commercial shoots for that was a six day shoot, doing six commercials in six days for the campaign. It was a grueling shoot that week because McDonalds advertising agency and the director were all at odds with each other, everybody was arguing and what-not and it was creative differences. And it was all funneling down to me, getting three different directions, they were sidestepping him to talk to me, and I was carrying the brunt of this ... so I was really wrought up and having this horrible week. I went home and '20/20' was on one night and Barbara Walters was interviewing Better Midler. And part of the interview was this, it was 1990 and Walters said, 'Bette, I interviewed you after you did 'The Rose'. Shortly after our interview, you had a nervous breakdown and went in to rehab. What makes you a different Bette Midler today then the one I interviewed then?' And Bette Midler looks at her confidently and says, 'Barbara I don't care anymore. I used to care so much about every inch of what was happening and image, and all the people arguing around me. Now, I wear what they tell me to wear, I stand where they want me to stand, and I say what they tell me to say. I do the best that I can inside that bubble, but outside of that bubble, I don't care. It's freeing isn't it.'

So, I'm watching this, going, 'I need to do that!' So I went back to my McDonalds shoot the next day with 'I don't care, you all do what you gotta do. I will do the best I can with what I have been given here, and that's all I'm responsible for!' How freeing is that? Now, a couple years later I'm on the set of 'Hocus Pocus'. Bette Midler, is this far away from me. So I got the chance to tell her that she inspired me to get through that shoot, to which she responded, 'I said that? That's pretty good isn't it?' (Doug Laughs)

On Dealing with His New Fame

"Doug Jones" has become this entity that is public, but Dougie is someone who I don't have much time for anymore. And I wish I had more time for Dougie. I could make that time I suppose, part of it might be that I know that like the Doug Jones entity might only last for five minutes and I don't want to miss any of it. It's what I've been working for my whole life. But what that means is, I miss family vacations, I miss weddings, funerals, birthday parties, I miss a lot of real life. And that's what hurts in here somewhere. (Points to his heart.) And when I have a 15 year old finding me on Myspace, and saying like, "I wannabe this and that and can you write back to me?", it kills me when I don't have time to do that. It kills me. So there's the personal side of me that would love to have more time to massage life, but we'll see if that happens. Maybe when I retire. I hope I never retire though! I don't know, is there an answer to this?