“Hello?”
“Do you have a second to talk?”
The seven words an artist never wants to hear from his agent. It means the agent is calling with bad news. He is buying time. He is trying to soften the blow. Otherwise, he would simply say, “Congratulations!”
“I’m too old for this horseshit, Stu,” I say. “Just tell me.”
“Netflix is greenlighting your project,” Stu says. “There was actually a bidding war between Apple and Netflix, but Netflix came out on top. You’re welcome.”
For a moment, I am too stunned to speak. My whole career has been one rejection after another until now, when everything is coming up roses. My body has learned to cushion itself for a no as if I am a self-driving car that knows it’s going to get into an accident and engages its airbag just before the big blow.
“Did you hear me, Barry? Netflix greenlightedThe Golden Gays.”
I still can’t find the words to sum up over forty years of frustration. Instead, a single whooping cry echoes through the quiet canyon. Quail scatter from the surrounding underbrush and scoot across the desert floor.
“Congratulations!” Stu booms.
“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” I ask. “Why did you ask me if I had a second?”
“I actuallydidn’tknow if you had a second to talk,” Stu says. “You’ve been doing so much press lately.”
“Tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out.”
For the next half hour, Stu navigates me through the process, who passed, who bid on my project, what studios loved about it and why some were hesitant to bid. He tells me Ian McKellen is interested in seeing the script, and that Neil Patrick Harris—after reading about what happened to me in the press—is interested in recreating the character of Coco.
“You know I admire the hell out of you for doing this,” Stu says when he is finished, “but I still think it’s a bit of a boneheaded move on your part. You turned down offers for starring roles in sitcoms that you could exec produce, you turned down wonderful supporting roles in feature films that could have made you richer than you ever imagined, and you chose this.”
“It’s not a vanity project, Stu.”
“I know that, Barry, but it is a career-defining project,” hesays. “If this fails, you might be back at square one. Studios will be wary of hiring you again, and the folks who offered you roles this time might not be so willing to do so next time.”
“I hear you loud and clear, but I think my whole life has led me to this,” I say. “And if it doesn’t work, I’ll have fulfilled my dream and will happily go back to doing car commercials.”
Stu laughs. “Yeah, right.”
“Well, not happily,” I amend. “I just want to say thank you, Stu. I know those car commercials didn’t make either of us rich, and I damn well know you could have cut me at any time and never thought about me again.”
“Do you know why I never did?”
“Why?”
“You refused to give up, Barry. I’ll take you as a client over some of my biggest clients any day. They whine and complain because they didn’t have the right Smartwater in their trailers, or only got paid two million dollars for an eighteen-minute speaking role in a film. They have zero idea how to survive when the tough times come to call, and believe me, they will come. That phone will stop ringing, and they will wither. You, my friend, are now poised to change the world because of everything you and your friends have endured. You are a survivor.”
Stu whispers something to an assistant and continues.
“Run with this break, Barry. You finally you got one forty years after you became an overnight success. Control your own destiny and don’t ever look back. I want to call you in a decade and tell you that the studio has renewed the show for another year. I want to call you and tell you that you’ve been nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes. I want the next chapter of your life to be the best because you never, ever gave up.”
“Thank you, Stu.”
“Don’t thank me, thank yourself.”
Stu’s voice actually breaks a little bit.
“Are you getting emotional?” I tease.
“I’m an agent,” he says, clearing his throat. “I have noemotion. My blood runs cold and deep. I eat studio executives raw for lunch. Now go celebrate. I’ll get the contract over to you ASAP. Start pulling together your writing team, because you know the studio will want to push their folks on you.”
“I will.”
