I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

Premiere #15: New York City

September 7, 2009

The NYC premiere was possibly the most exhilarating and exhausting day of my entire life. Exhilarating because we fucking killed it in one of the two most important premieres on the tour (the other being LA). Exhausting because I had to be “on” for 21 straight hours. The executive summary of the day:

We do the Boston premiere on Wednesday. Goes great. As soon as the Boston premiere was finished, along with the post screening press, I did not go to a bar and party or to my hotel to rest. At around midnight, I got into a Town Car and headed to NYC because I had 7am morning TV press in NYC. After four hours of fitful, awful sleep in the back of the Town Car, I get to my hotel at 430. I get my wake-up call at 630, and head over to CW-11 to do my TV spot. That’s over by 8, I have an hour for breakfast which I instead use to write-up the Boston Premiere recap, then I do two radio interviews and head to the press junket at 1030. Here I do like 20 different interviews, then I get an hour and a half break at 4 to shower and eat. At 4:45 I am literally stepping out of the shower when my PR guy calls to tell me that the NY Times is waiting in the lobby. 45 minutes early. I rush down there and meet the NY Times reporter and photographer who will be shadowing me for the next 8 hours. Then we go straight to the tour bus to find 200 people already in line, some of them having been there since noon. I take a few pics and sign some things for about 30 mins, then start the pre-screening interviews with more press. About five of those, then I have to do the press line photos, then it’s 7pm and time to intro the movie. We do that, and now have like an hour and a half to rest while the movie plays. Except as soon as I get on the bus, we hear this over the walkie: “Everything is fucked up, I’m re-starting the movie.” Nils and I run up the three flights of stairs at AMC Times Square like Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay to find the projectionist re-spooling the movie and the crowd sitting there, restless and annoyed. I have a huge adrenaline dump and my heart almost falls through my ass as I desperately try to entertain the crowd during what is the longest five minutes of my life. Movie finally starts, and I can retire to the tour bus. Except there is another interview to do. Before I know it the movie is over, and its time for the Q&A. Then time for pics and signings with fans, and more than half the crowd stays. Like 250+ people. It’s so many people the NY Times photographer gives up and falls asleep by the end of the line. That’s over by 11pm, and we head to the afterparty, to do even MORE interviews. By the time I look up, it’s 2:30am, all of the reporters have left, and I am so mentally and physically exhausted, I can’t really even speak anymore. I do the, “Go get a cab and text me from inside of it” trick to a girl, meet her out there, and get to my hotel by 3am. I still manage to have sex–I have no idea where the energy came from, probably that Red Bull I pounded at 8pm–and I pass out at like 3:30am. Then I was up again at 830am for more radio, and then off to do the Toronto premiere.

Non-stop from 630am until 330am. 21 straight hours. Having to be “on” the WHOLE time. Days like this make me understand why some celebs do cocaine. As I sit here and write this, it’s four days later and I am still exhausted from that day.

I am not complaining. Parts of this job suck, but overall I love it. It’s what I m meant to do, and if I didn’t want to do this, I could quit at any time. This is what I have been working towards for all these years; I have been training for this for years and brought this on myself. So many people think they want to be famous or be celebrities, and believe me, there are many benefits to fame…but trust me, what you don’t see is the incredible work you have to put in to do it. It’s no different than sports–everyone wants to be Michael Jordan, but no one wants to spend 12 hours a day working their ass off to get there. You may think you want my life, but don’t be so sure you are willing to do what it takes to have it.

[And also, to all of my friends in NYC who called me or texted me or were who annoyed me all day about pointless bullshit (ahem, Laura, Sarah, Minnie, Mike, etc) there was a reason I didn't get back to you. See above, and then apologize to me later.]

As to the funny: We weren’t really able to do a normal pre-show because I had press right up until the movie started, but there were two things that fucking cracked me up.

-During the signing, this one girl asked me and Nils this question:

Girl: “If you had to choose between a having baby you couldn’t give up and having herpes, which would you choose?”
Nils: “The baby, definitely. You can always kill the baby.”

The Comedic Sniper with a 1000 yard head shot!!!!!

-This is how tired I was at the end of the night:

I saw Charlie was spitting game at a cute girl as I was leaving. Not better looking than the girls all around me, but still, something needed to be done. I meant to go up and say something funny like, “You should avoid this one, he still hasn’t apologized for giving me an STD last week,” or something else that is obviously a joke, but I was so mentally exhausted the joke came out as, “HE HAS HERPES!” I was so confused and embarrassed by own brain I just walked off without explaining.

The best part is that she thought I was serious and didn’t hook up with him because of it. I win again Charlie!

EDIT: I forgot to talk about the best part of the entire day. I left this out at first because I wasn’t sure how to even talk about it, but then someone sent this to me:

“Tucker – when you were signing my shit, that black lady that worked at the movie theater dropped some epic lines. Not sure if you remember, but I figured I’d share one.

So the two girls in front of me were blatantly there to fuck Tucker, and this black lady picked up on it. One of the things she said was: “You goin’ take SHOTS off dat ass!”

That black lady did not work at the theater. That was the NY Times staff photographer, Michelle Agins, who is arguably the coolest person I’ve met in a decade or more. She and I hung out for like five hours, and she is part of the reason I was able to stay sane during the ridiculousness of all the interviews. I won’t get too far into it because I don’t know if anyone really cares about that stuff, I just wanted to give her a shout out. If all press were like her, I would want to have press every day.

But if you are ever lucky enough to have her come out and shoot you for a NY Times story, ask her about the guy she dated early in her career. You won’t fucking believe it.

-The NYC pictures are here.

-The NYC Premiere video is here (and it’s a great one):