The new movie “Hick” stars Alec Baldwin, of whom you may have heard. Plus Juliette Lewis and Blake Lively, of whom you may have heard. Also Rory Culkin, of whose brother Macaulay you may have heard.
Cinema Society’s Andrew Saffir told Rory: “The screening’s 7:30. Arrive at 7.” By 7:40 he hadn’t. So I left. So the one of whom nobody’s heard was Rory, 22, who eventually showed with a large posse and long scraggly hair.
Next day he told me: “Macaulay also started young, which for sure changed his life. Blowing up that much so fast is hard to handle. I don’t have that recognition. Others get recognized, not me. Doing at least one thing a year for the past 10 years — small-budget things but none with wide release — I’m not out there a lot.”
About his lifestyle: “I live alone in the East Village. But I’m close to my family. We all live close. I’m in the same small apartment building as my brother.
“I don’t cook. I order out all the time. My apartment’s crazy. It’s bearskins next to George Washington’s picture near one of Eisenhower alongside paintings of aliens. So, when I treat myself, what I do is buy a piece of art.
“In ‘Hick’ I only had one scene. It’s about a girl who takes off from a broken home to get a better life. I play someone she comes across. There’s an instant romance. My character’s not a really bad person but, playing a drinking game, she gets drunk. It’s set in Nebraska and Nevada, but those places are expensive, so we filmed in North Carolina.
“Director Derick Martini is my friend. We worked together before on a movie he wrote. So I agreed to be in this without even reading the script.
“I actually grew up on movie sets. I started at 9, but I never took an acting class. My first screen test was a long ride to the audition. I got nervous and was sick and kept wanting to throw up. An early film was ‘[You Can] Count on Me’ with Mark Ruffalo. I played Laura Linney’s son.”
Then: “Y’know what? I think I have to cut my long hair.”
Yeah, right. Also buy a watch.
SPEAKING of Laura Linney, she couldn’t get a reservation at Flex Mussels on 13th Street. They’ve since apologized. Miss Linney, whose awards list is longer than their menu, can now get any table anywhere anytime anyplace anyhow . . . On Judy Sleed’s Long Island radio show, Pauline
Sutcliffe, sister of the late original Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe, says a movie’s being done of her book “In Conversation With Stuart Sutcliffe.”
EXCUUUUUSE me. Isn’t there legal protection when your writing’s lifted word for word? Brittania’s daytime TV hot shot Jeremy Kyle, who has a syndicated talk show here, told me his father was the Queen Mother’s personal secretary for 41 years. Whatever else he said I also printed May 3. May 4 some so-called scribe using the byline Walker re-reported it, lifted my actual verbatim quotes, without mentioning me or giving me credit.
May his London Telegraph newspaper know Mr. Wacker is no reporter. He’s a repeater.
CARNEGIE Deli’s being sold. Supposedly for mega bucks. Enough at least for a lifetime supply of pastrami.
WE’RE approaching Mother’s Day. Bill Clinton says his mom weighed his advice about all political candidates “except for the president of the United States because she knew as much as I did about a presidential maybe’s qualities and deficits and didn’t want any of my thoughts.” Adds William Jefferson: “And she was right. She knew as much as I did.”
MORE Mother’s Day. Carrie Fisher: “You don’t only want to be loved by your child, you want to be preferred. My former husband was so rich that he had $5,000 remote controls for his televisions. Who can compete with that?”
Also: “Celebrity begets obscurity. I watched it happen to my mother, Debbie Reynolds. I didn’t like it. Her slide to obscurity began around age 40. She did a horror movie. It was constant reinventions after that.”
LAST month’s income tax time. Metro North’s Harlem line, 6:30 p.m.-ish. One guy 30-ish. One 40-ish. Accountants, apparently stressed from IRS deadline chores. Not shielding his mouth, not whispering, not writing down initials, not checking to see if anyone overheard, one mentioning his client said: “Jennifer Jason Leigh demanded I do something about contesting a credit-card charge. Who’s Jennifer Jason Leigh think she is anyhow?”
A doctor, lawyer or accountant’s rule is privacy. Confidentiality. Unknown was that his entire conversation was overheard by a stranger, also an accountant, who, then, horrified, repeated this.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.