Studio 54 co-founder Ian Schrager is not a fan of Simon Hammerstein’s high-concept cabaret the Box. “He told us it was sophomoric,” Hammerstein tells Vanity Fair, in a profile out today. “He said it was like spring break. It was packed that night. I was a bit crushed.” Hammerstein adds he got a bit of a swollen head when his Lower East Side club was initially a success, with a crowd including Sean Penn, Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson. “[I became] a real kind of a cock,” said Hammerstein, who’s since expanded to London and Las Vegas. “[I] got confused about who I was. Am I the character of this nightclub guy who’s meant to be crazy, and getting everyone having lots of fun? Or am I meant to be, I don’t know, watching the books in the morning?” He also recalled one too-over-the-top act involving a live baby that backfired with the crowd: “I had security literally hiding me. Basically 80 percent of the audience en masse just walked [out], in the middle of the show.”