The Big Young Hollywood Hangover

8. Logic Is Irrelevant in Hollywood. There are important similarities between Tinseltown and the lottery: If your chance of winning the lottery by buying one ticket is not statistically different from winning the lottery with five tickets (both are approximately one in 10 kazillion), then turning into the next Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts is no less difficult now than it was when you were dreaming about it three or four years ago. But if young actors were vulnerable to logic at all, they wouldn't be in Hollywood to begin with, so they probably aren't able to comfort themselves with thoughts like this. So why not go with complete lack of logic? Take Colin Farrell, for example. He's the charismatic young actor most Americans might barely have heard of, but still Hollywood has been handing him role after role. He's even been given large sums of money to "star" in a film when there's been no proof that he's capable of opening a picture. Most actors start getting plum roles when the public anoints them at the box office, not when studios start vying for their services with no public endorsement. But Hollywood gets this way sometimes, creating more Industry hype than the press could ever dream of drumming up. Farrell is good, as anyone who saw Joel Schumacher's Tigerland the obscure little film that started the talk, knows. But that doesn't explain the run Farrell has been on, and, given the results of his run so far (American Outlaws tanked, Hart's War tanked), it doesn't explain why he's still on it. If starring with Tom Cruise in Minority Report this summer finally justifies everything Farrell has been given, he'll still be one of the luckiest young actors Hollywood ever took a fancy to. Young actors who've lost roles to Farrell and believe his ability to work a room has given him an unfair edge are taking the wrong lesson from his experience. In times like these when the simple numbers are against them, they should be pleased that Farrell demonstrates just how blithely logic can be tossed out the window when you contemplate your destiny.

9. Pretend the Bubble Never Happened. Life is grim enough for actors who flew high over the last four or five years and now see few projects even to read for. But they're at or near the top of the Hollywood pyramid scheme, the mass of which is made up of young actors who saw no real success when success was as available as it ever gets in showbiz. For the throng who had, at best, small parts in films, the sense that Halley's Comet just graced the sky for its allotted time and won't be back for an eternity must be palpable. Naomi Watts is the actress anyone in this sort of despair can gain solace from. Watts is no longer officially part of Young Hollywood, since she's past her 30th year. She managed to be around throughout the madness of the bubble without ever really benefiting from it. She remained, in fact, virtually invisible, despite having acted in Australia and America for many years and being physically present in a town desperate for young talent. Now she's on the Hollywood issue cover of Vanity Fair with good reason, having given a literally eye-opening performance in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. Lynch is one of the gifted directors in Hollywood who inevitably sort through the masses and the hype for those actors whose qualities serve their purposes. Curtis Hanson, Cameron Crowe, Robert Towne and others do the same thing. No bubbles or post-bubble doldrums ever change that.

10. Ya Gotta Love It. It's true that movies of more-dubious-than-usual merit are no longer being propelled en masse into the studio and independent pipelines. And there's no arguing with the fact that fewer producers are eager to cast a bunch of young actors in a movie just because they're young. But Hollywood has been through this many times by now and the larger, more beautiful truths of the town abide through thick and thin. This is still a town where a guy like Charlie Sheen and a gal like Denise Richards can find each other and in their love reaffirm the eternal possibility of complete renaissance in the face of discouragement. There is a perfection to this union that puts a smile to the lips of even the most jaded observers of Young Hollywood. If fact, the more jaded, the better. For here we have a prince of Young Hollywood past (and, as a second generation thespian, a special prince at that), who, in the process of surviving his own Young Hollywood era, has obliterated distinctions between high and low movie culture by starring in films like Platoon and Hot Shots! in the same lifetime; defied the conventions of Hollywood denial by owning up to hilariously objectionable deeds and opinions; and reinvented notions of success by making it seem like a career triumph to be replacing a beloved, retiring star in an old TV sitcom. His wife-to-be is a starlet whose career blossomed precisely with the just-past teen craze (though she was no teen), beginning with her role as the pneumatic space cadet in Starship Troopers, continuing with the commendable Wild Things, in which she displayed particular style while washing the car in a soaking-wet top and short shorts, and including her stint as the world's least believable nuclear scientist in The World Is Not Enough. Richards has protested on occasion that she is not a bimbo (she may not have used those exact words, of course), so it is particularly touching that she's fallen for Sheen, who's been pretty up-front about his appreciation not only of bimbos but easy ladies of a more professional nature. Don't anybody try to tell us that Hollywood isn't a great place when two such awesome Young Hollywood vets--each from a different era--can find true love together and maybe even make a future Sheen to lead a teen craze of his own. If Charlie and Denise work fast, their kid will be ready for the craze after the one that's already a gleam in the eye of Bruce and Demi's brood. It's impossible to feel hungover when you think about this, Young Hollywood.

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