The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [89]
Are you a self-confident man? What things don’t you like about yourself?
Basically, I am self-confident. I don’t like it if I’m not creatively free-flowing—it worries me and I wonder, is this the end? Is the well empty now? I worry about the lack of self-confidence of someone who, at times, has to get himself up or hype himself. I wonder why I think I have to do it. Sometimes I’m not able to take in the positive communication that’s directed at me because I’m not sure I deserve it. The difference now is, I let all these symptoms of lack of self-confidence just be. I don’t let them define me. In other words, I’m more comfortable with my lack of self-confidence, so in a way, it’s more self-confidence.
Were you always sure of your talent?
I was at times surer than I am now. Nobody was ever bored with my work, even when I didn’t know what I was doing. But I worried about the other side of it. I thought, “Well, anybody can fool these idiots. So where’s the million dollars? Why doesn’t everybody love me? Where’s the ego gratification?” I talk to most good actors, and none of them know they’re any good.
Does it matter to you if you win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for ‘Terms of Endearment’?
I told my betting friends before I ever met any of the people involved and read all of the script that they should bet in Las Vegas if they could get a price. That’s how much I liked this part. I’ll tell you another childish reason why I’d like to win. I think you gotta have nutty goals in life. I’d like to win more Oscars than Walt Disney, and I’d like to win them in every category. And I’ve been after this category for a while. Unstylistically, I love the Academy Awards. And I’m very Fifties Zen—all tributes are false, all is vanity—but I like seeing a Mount Rushmore of 1984 movie stars in a row for the one night, no matter what nutty ideas they’ve got. It’s fun. Nobody gets hurt. With a couple of exceptions, I’ve known whether I was going to win or not because I’ve been following these things since I was a kid. And I’ve always had a better time when I know I’m not going to win, because then I’m just into the evening. I’m Mr. Hollywood. I love everybody. Of course, I’ve also done the opposite, gone deciding I’m going to be the worst loser in history and just say outrageous things. Even when I don’t go, I love the Oscars. I sit at home and talk about the slime green dress and say, “God, if I ever had this kind of breakdown on television, I’d shoot myself.”
How do you spend your money?
I run a few houses [in Aspen and Los Angeles] that are going all the time, so I piss away a lot of money on that. Paintings—but I hate to call them an investment; it’s banking rather than investment. I’m not a trader or collector, but I’m aware that I don’t throw $10,000 out the window. I own two tickets to the Lakers game that cost about $160 a night even though I’m not there half the year. I follow the theatrical tradition of whoever’s making the most money picks up the check. And I like buying presents for people.
Are you happy nowadays?
Extremely. I would love to see a big wide avenue of tremendous productivity inevitably spread before me, but that’s not the nature of the thing. Other than that, nobody’s mad at me now. I’m in shape. Things are going well for my friends. But then, I’ve been on bonus time since I was twenty-eight. I had a great enough life for anybody who ever lived up until then, so past that, it’s been a big bonus.
What’s the secret of your appeal?
I don’t know. As a teenager and in my early twenties, my friends used to call me “the Great Seducer”—even though they definitely were not sure I was attractive—because I seemed to have something invisible but unfailing.
And now, as an actor, you get paid for it. Seduction is your business.
[Laughs] Right. But I don’t want to enforce my will on anybody. I