The Great Mouse Fraud!
So here we are again. If the internet is a giant, coal-powered smelting oven that demands to be fed with shovel-loads of information every few seconds or it will wither and die, then I have my let my little patch of it starve to death. I have, as they say, taken a leave of absence. I’m okay with that though. As with many things in life, the trick is to not need it. As someone far wittier than me once said, “desperation is the world’s worst cologne”.
Read more...Dud Silence: The Hellish Experience Of Making A Bad Horror Film
There’s nothing I love more than a good mountain climbing metaphor. Speaking in mountain climbing metaphors is a bad habit of mine. Maybe it’s because I’m a screenwriter. It’s like I’m a mountain climber and I can’t stop sculpting mountains out of mashed potatoes in my spare time. See what I did there? I did it again. I can’t stop. And never is a mountain climbing metaphor more appropriate than when I talk about my experiences working in Hollywood. Guess what experiences I’m about to relay to you in oh-so-riveting fashion? That’s right, my friend. Specifically, the worst experience I’ve ever had in this craaaaazy town of tinsel. Let’s get to it. Expect a few mountains along the way.
Read more...My Years In Recovery: A Sordid Tale Of Celebrity, Anarchy And Graffitied Footwear
I was famous once...among the type of people who wrote on their shoes. In 1996, whilst “studying” at university in Melbourne, I got a job on a TV show called ‘Recovery’. Like me, when not “studying”, the kids in my class at university were day-dreaming of the day that their genius would finally be discovered by the world. In between all of this “studying” and day-dreaming, most of us had a part time job. That usually meant bartending - but for me it meant ‘Recovery’. It was a three hour long, completely live, music-based variety program that ran on Saturday mornings between 9am and noon. It aired on the ABC, the Australian cousin of the BBC, which meant that the network was government funded and had no need for commercials or, supposedly, commercial imperatives.
Read more...PUNK'S NOT DEAD: The saga of my lost, epic student film.
I swear I don’t google myself that much. On average, I probably type my name into the mother of all search engines about two or three times a year. I’m not just saying that to appear modest. Here at The Word In The Stone, there is no room for dishonesty. I have a healthy ego, worthy of anyone who chooses to make a living forcing other human beings to sit in a dark room and look at them.
Read more...Clueless: A Story Of Vomit And Friendship In Los Angeles
I live in Los Angeles. That is still surprising for me to say, even today. Los Angeles is not a place you live in - it’s a place you end up in. You move here with a six month plan, and then you wake up twenty years later. I’d lived here for six years before I realized I lived here. Okay, fine - I know that there are people who were born here and actually grew up here, but they are a rarity in my world. A native Angeleno is the same as one of the deer that roams the Hollywood Hills - on the rare occasion you encounter one, you freeze and stare, knowing the moment isn’t going to last and that it’ll be a while before you see one again. Of course, native Angeleno’s hate hearing this, but it’s true. Of all my friends here, 99.9% came from somewhere else.
Read more...“Are you sitting down? You got the part!!” - A journey through the brutal and barbaric world of an actor.
Over the last few months, leading up to the release of my brand spankin’ new film ‘Insidious’, I’ve given a lot of interviews. Not ‘Tom Cruise’ lots, but a lot. Nine times out of ten I am paired in the interviews with my good friend and directing cohort James Wan. One thing we’ve noticed is that journalists from Texas to Tokyo all ask the same questions. It has made me retrospectively realize that when I was on the other side of the camera, as a ‘reporter’ working for an Australian TV show back in the day, the questions that I had thought were so original were probably just the same questions everyone else was asking.
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