O.J. Simpson’s New Book, Teenage Fads, and Temporary Families
Nappoholics Anonymous is a weekly column featuring twelve random thoughts by actor Tony Nappo. Some are funny, some are poignant, some bother him, and some make him weep from sadness while others make him weep for joy. Here are his thoughts: unfiltered, uncensored, and only occasionally unsafe for work.
1. O.J. Simpson was released on parole this week for the armed robbery he committed and he is already planning to release a book called How I Should Have Done That Robbery Properly and Not Gone to Jail: The Way I Did With That Other Thing.
This guy’s gonna create a whole new genre of literature.
2. When I was a kid, when Italians played sports together in the summer, we never did shirts against skins. We did the kinda-hairy guys against the really hairy guys.
3. From the archives:
4. Fucking Albert Schultz. After all the public ball-breaking I have put him through, I sent him a request for a favour: I asked if a buddy of mine (who’s identity I will protect) who has been through a really fucking unimaginably personal tragedy could visit the Kim’s Convenience set while I was shooting, and Albert, WHILE he was in New York masterminding and promoting the Soulpepper Invasion, kept me in the loop and granted my favour within 48 hours.
So, in public and in writing, I say, humbly, thank you, Albert Schultz. I owe you a big one.
5. How fucking lazy do you have to be to not eat your poutine separately?
6. When I was about thirteen, solving a rubik’s cube was the biggest fad going. We spent hours and hours trying to discover the patterns to unlock the puzzle. Now that my daughter is almost thirteen, a fidget spinner is the equivalent popular sensation. It involves spinning a piece of plastic on your finger for no discernible reason. By the time she has a thirteen-year-old, I predict that sitting in one spot and just staring at an artificially coloured pile of dog shit for hours is going to be the all the rage.
7. Top 5 Leonard Cohen Songs If They’d Been Written by KISS.
5- Ain’t No Cure for Herpes
4- Lick This Waltz
3- First We Take Viagra
2- Everybody Knows that Paul Stanley is Gay
1- Bird On a Hooker
8.
9. So I’ve been trying that strategy where you call anything you don’t like fake to make it go away but, so far, my “fake belly” and my “fake taxes in arrears” are still very fucking there.
10. Peter Keleghan once asked me if I was a Dean guy or a Frank guy.
Me- That’s a trick question. Obviously, you’re a Dean guy.
Peter- What do you mean?
Me- Because everyone’s a Frank guy. Nobody is a Dean guy. Only a Dean guy would even ask that question.
11. One thing I have got to give Montana’s. They don’t give you any of that smoker-shaming bullshit that most of the other restaurants do.
12. It is a more common feeling for me in theatre than in film, but one of the most positive aspects of being an actor is these temporary families that we form. We grow extremely close to each other ridiculously quickly—we go places that require revealing ourselves at our most vulnerable to each other, we drop all of the social defenses we usually use to protect ourselves, we need to be willing to fail and look stupid in front of each other and trust that we won’t be judged or diminished in each other’s eyes because of our failures but, in fact, be respected for them. We respect each other for our willingness to put the project before our egos. We drink together. We laugh together. We cry together. We strategize together and celebrate together and resolve and move past our problems together collectively. Some of us fall in love with each other. And when it’s all over, we miss each other. We have shared something intimate and personal that nobody else in the world has shared and won’t ever fully understand.
And I say it’s rarer in film because for most of my career in film, I haven’t been part of the main cast that returns day after day and has the opportunity to bond with the cast and crew and feel as strong a connection as I have in theatre. In film I have mostly been a distant cousin or uncle but not a brother or a father.
And as I have gotten older, both in film and theatre, I feel a little less connected to the family as I did when I was a younger actor. I know how it will end and keep a certain distance. I have lived through the cycles. It’s just a job. People have kids and lives and tend to hang out less than we did when we were young. There is still a strong sense of bonding to build this thing out of only our imaginations and a writer’s blueprint, but I’ve been through it so many times, I have built up a thicker skin in terms of getting too close to people or missing them when the show is over. I rarely go to wrap parties or closing parties. I focus more on how much I have appreciated the experience and the people now than how much I will miss it when it’s done.
I say all this because there are always exceptions to these blanket statements that I am making here. I recently finished my last day on a film that had been a long and slightly crazy journey, in a good way. And on the last night, the six-year-old girl who played my daughter gave me a friendship bracelet with my character name on it and the simplest sweetest note on the envelope it came in. And I realized how much I would miss this girl. And how, if and when I ever saw her again, she wouldn’t be the same person anymore. She may be a young lady or even an adult by the time we cross paths again. And it is entirely possible that I won’t ever see her again at all, or any of my castmates. I am at the age where my peers have started dying at fairly regular intervals. Who knows how long I’ll be around for.
In any event, I think what I am trying to say is to not be like me. To NOT develop that thick skin and grow less attached to your little families over time because it actually never gets less special, what we do. Value and celebrate these amazing worlds we create to tell these stories.
This is the life we have chosen and these are the people we have chosen to do it with. And we are all so fucking lucky.
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Tony Nappo
Tony is Italian, he’s from Scarborough, he’s an actor, he’s a father, he’s a really good house painter, and he doesn’t believe that most things matter, ultimately, at all.
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Every single fucking time there is a mass shooting, we all give the speeches, and we all share the memes (to each other, who are all mostly already in agreement), but nothing changes.
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At one point, I was sleeping with so many actresses that they used to just hold ACTRA meetings in my bedroom.
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If the Freedom Convoy has answered one question for every Canadian, I think it's this: whatever happened to that dumb kid in my class?
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In these newly woke times in the entertainment industry, it’s slightly amazing to me that nobody has protested the fact that Denzel Washington isn’t actually Scottish yet.
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