All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [40]
“In all the years, I’ve never lost a pet,” Jack will tell you, deadpan, in his Staten Island accent.
Jack and I began to work together when I was on location in New York City shooting Someone Like You … in 2000. He’s a consummate professional, making me feel perfectly safe without smothering me and all the while becoming the crew’s favorite person. That works for me, because smothering makes me nuts, and I like to fly under the radar. Once, during the filming, I hopped on the subway and asked Jack to meet me at a stop downtown. When the doors opened, I saw the platform swarming with uniformed police—a woman had just been stabbed in the station. Jack found me in the crowd and shepherded me through the police lines. A sergeant he’d known when he was in the NYPD recognized him (he seems to know everyone).
“I’d like you to meet Ashley Judd,” said Jack.
“No kiddin’?” said the sergeant.
“Yeah. We’re trying to get to the set on time.”
The next thing I knew, I was racing through the streets of New York in the back of a squad car, and he never said, “Told you so,” about my wise idea to ride the subway to the set.
Jack got his nickname on another movie we did together, where he took on the rather unpopular responsibility of wrangling everybody (which could include up to five or seven pets) on early mornings, helping us be on time. He was a father figure as well as a watchful presence. From then on, it was “Papa Jack.” I have since chosen to significantly scale back my moviemaking and let go of the blockbuster, movie-star life, but I do look back on that stretch of time with Papa Jack and our small, tight-knit crew with a great deal of fondness. He became family to Dario and me, and when he lost his wife to cancer, we flew to Staten Island to be by his side at the funeral.
Papa Jack agreed to work for PSI for a fraction of his usual rate. Despite its size and its reach, the nonprofit runs on a tight budget, which both pleases donors and maximizes our impact, and most of the travel and accommodations for my trips are donated. In this way, almost all of the money raised goes into AIDS prevention programs—a cause, it turned out, that was close to Jack’s heart. Jack told us that one of his brothers had died from complications of AIDS. This was his way of honoring his memory and giving back so that others might not suffer.
With Papa Jack riding shotgun, we merged into the Zen chaos of Phnom Penh traffic. Laid out along the branches and tributaries of the Mekong River, the capital city’s traffic mirrors the currents and eddies that surround it. Vans, pedicabs, motor scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians all drift along with no regard to right of way, paying no attention to street signs. To make matters more intriguing, people were precariously piled and perched on scooters in remarkable numbers, astride, sidesaddle, on the handlebars, and on the back fender—and holding their young while doing so. As if that weren’t enough, many were wearing pajamas. I was told that Cambodians wear their newest, most matched clothing, which often happens to be … pajamas. In this totally non-Western swirl, in bright daylight, outfitted in sleep suits, somehow they all survive and eventually reach their destinations. Ours was the InterContinental Hotel, where most folks on NGO and political business stay.
I busied myself organizing my room as I needed it to be—not a small task at the time—put all the flowers and garlands presented to me at the airport and at points