Daniel & Bobby — SoHo, New York City — Part One
JULY 2, 1997
AN INTERVIEW WITH HIMSELF, THIRTY YEARS APART
Daniel: So. Tell everyone where we are right now.
Bobby: Excuse me, everyone already knows where we are. We're in SoHo. Where else would I be. I'm walking down West Broadway, I've got somewhere to be — probably don't, actually, but I'm walking like I do, that's the whole trick — and I'm passing all my stores. Todd Oldham. Comme des Garçons. Anna Sui, obviously. I don't own anything from any of them. Yet.
Daniel: Yet.
Bobby: (doesn't hear the way he says it) Yet. It's coming. I can feel it the way you feel weather changing. I get my platforms at John Fluevog — those I do own, I saved for those, don't ask how long — and I take the long way past the Mercer just to feel fancy for a block. I don't go in. I've never been in. I just like knowing it's there.
Daniel: What does knowing it's there do for you?
Bobby: (a beat, like the question is dumber than he expected) It reminds me I'm going to live here. Not visit. Live. I'm going to have a key to a door on this street and nobody's gonna believe it took this long.
Daniel: How long has it taken so far?
Bobby: Depends who's asking. If you're a casting director, no time at all, I just got here, fresh face, blank slate. If you're my mother, I've been "about to make it" for three Christmases running and she's starting to say it with a little edge on it. If you're my bathtub — which, again, is in my kitchen, which I choose to find charming and not insane — it's been long enough that I've stopped noticing the smell of the street when I open the window for air, because there's no AC, and the smell is just what nine o'clock sounds like now.
Daniel: Tell me about the doorman.
Bobby: (and here, for the first time, something in him actually softens, unguarded, before he catches it and turns it back into a bit) Oh, don't get me started on the doorman. The Paramount. Gorgeous. Obscenely gorgeous, in that way where you almost resent it a little, structurally. I flirt with him every single morning like it's my job, which — it's not, my job is elsewhere and it is much less glamorous than pretending to be a guest at a boutique hotel I don't sleep in. And every night on my way home he's got that grin, and he says it every time, same line, doesn't even change it up: "Living the dream!"
Daniel: Do you believe him?
Bobby: (laughs, too fast) Do I — it's a joke, Daniel. He's a doorman. I'm a waiter who tells people at parties he's "in between projects." Neither of us is living any kind of dream, that's the whole bit, that's why it's funny —
Daniel: I didn't ask if it was a joke. I asked if you believe him.
Bobby: (quiet, for once, actually turning it over) ...Ask me again in thirty years.
• • •
Daniel: Alright, Rockstar. Set the scene for me — not the postcard version. What's actually going on with you right now, today?
Bobby: It's hot. Fucking hot. It's July 2nd. My fourth-floor Hell's Kitchen walk-up on 46th and Ninth doesn't have AC, so I spent half the day swimming in my clawfooted vintage bathtub from 1940 that's in my kitchen. Not so glam, but damn it's hot. Had a hooch too, which, as a rule, a rockstar like me might as well start drinking at noon, right? My parents are coming for my mom's fiftieth birthday on July 18th — actually my whole family is flying in for her. Her dream is to have lunch at Tavern on the Green, so we're doing it. I want to get her something very special. Not sure what.
Daniel: (laughing, a little) A rockstar. Noon hooch as a rule. I love that you've built yourself a whole persona complete with rules and traditions before you've even had a single actual rockstar thing happen to you yet.
Bobby: No, no, that is not how this goes. You're interviewing me, as the rockstar I am. Let's be clear.
Daniel: (hands up) Noted. Correcting course. No AC, fourth floor, July, and your solution is a 1940s clawfoot tub sitting in the middle of your kitchen like it pays rent. There's something almost right about that. Wrong century, wrong room, works anyway. You'll understand that sentence better later. (he lets it sit one beat too long, then moves on before Bobby can grab it) Your whole family's flying in for your mom's fiftieth. Tavern on the Green, her dream lunch. What does it do to you, saying that out loud? And the gift — walk me through what you've already ruled out.
Bobby: Well, funds are tight. Cash is tight. Since I got fired from the Olive Garden in Times Square last week, my only source of income is my internship with Jeffrey Finn at Jeffrey Finn Productions. That only allows me a hundred fifty dollars a week — but I did get approved for a Bergdorf Goodman credit card, and I got a call from my friend Bernadette over in Gucci that their summer sale begins tomorrow, July 3rd. Linda — my mom — lives for shoes.
Daniel: (a beat — you can hear him doing math he already knows the ending to) Okay. So. Olive Garden let you go, the internship's paying you a hundred fifty bucks a week, and your plan is a Bergdorf's card and the Gucci sale for Linda's shoes.
Bobby: (already bracing) Don't.
Daniel: I'm not — I'm just repeating it back to you. (a small laugh, but there's something underneath it) Here's what I actually want to know, though: is this about Linda, or is this about you? "My mom lives for shoes" and "I want to be the son who walks into Gucci and just gets them for her" are two different sentences, and I think you know that. (redirecting, gentler) What's Linda's actual size. And when's the last time you got her something that had nothing to do with how impressive it would look — just something she'd genuinely use, or love, that cost you almost nothing but time?
Bobby: Really? We are not playing that game. I have a lot of big things I am working on, and when one of them hits, all those cards will be paid instantly. And her size is 6.5, and my impeccable taste would be the icing on the cake for her fiftieth. Cost me nothing but time? Who has time to make anything that takes time? This is not Parsons School of Design, baby.
Daniel: (laughing despite himself) "This is not Parsons School of Design, baby" — write that down, somebody write that down. Okay. Fine. I'm not going to fight you on the shoes. Go be impeccable. (a pause — the compassion showing through the frustration now) But I want you to hear this part: "when one of them hits, all those cards will be paid instantly" — you say that like it's a fact you're reporting, not a hope you're carrying. There's a difference between those two things, and someday you're going to have to learn to tell them apart in real time, not thirty years later looking back. (redirecting again) Thirty years from now, when you think back on this exact moment — broke, hot, fired from the Olive Garden, about to charge shoes you can't afford for your mother's fiftieth because you love her and you don't know how else to show it yet — what do you think you'll have learned from it? What's the takeaway?
Bobby: Well, knowing Linda, she will still have the shoes. They will be mounted to the wall in her closet, a reminder of her baby, before he was a star. Thirty years from now I will have multiple Tony Awards to my name, an Oscar, and homes in New York, London, Miami, and Los Angeles. Madonna and I will be best friends and I will be Lola's favorite gay uncle.
Daniel: (letting him have the whole fantasy first, all of it, before responding) Tony Awards, an Oscar, four cities, Madonna on speed dial, favorite gay uncle status locked in. That's a hell of a list, Bobby. Very specific. Very rehearsed. (gently, not unkindly) That's the future you're picturing. I asked what you'll have learned. Those aren't the same question, and you answered the one that's easier to say out loud in a bathtub in July. (a small smile) So I'll ask it again: what's the actual takeaway? Not the trophy case. The lesson.
Bobby: The takeaway would be "live in the moment." In high school I used to sign people's yearbooks "Live Life to the Fullest." That motto landed and expands even thirty years later. Jesus, in thirty years I'll be fifty. I wonder if I will have found love, or if I'll still be pretending I look like Tom Cruise — Linda started that, not me — and can have my pick of the boys I want. I really believe that by then, gay marriage will be legal, and I would have had the wedding of my life. Maybe even a few kids. Who knows. Now, I just have to focus on my career.
Daniel: (quiet for a second) "Live Life to the Fullest." You signed that in yearbooks before you had any idea what it would cost you to actually mean it someday. That's the thing about mottos, Bobby — you get to say them for years before life asks you to prove them. (he doesn't answer the love question directly, but doesn't dodge it coldly either) I'll tell you this much: you're allowed to want the wedding. Hold onto that one. Don't let anyone talk you out of wanting it, not even the version of you that gets cynical somewhere in your thirties. Keep it. (the redirect, right on schedule) But "focus on my career" — what does focus actually look like for you right now, today? Not the fantasy version. What are you actually doing this week that you'd call focus?
Bobby: Here's the deal. Jeffrey sent me to a producer-backed reading of the new musical Footloose, based on the '80s movie. It was really fantastic. I am thinking when they are ready to hold auditions, I could get in there. Please do not question my focus — like I said, I have a few things lined up. I am prepping a cabaret act called CHIC. It will have the same poster vibe as Chicago, but with me in different stages of fabulousness. The whole project will be about how style is the magic sauce of success. Hot on the heels of the impossible-to-get-tickets revival of Chicago on Broadway, now with Ann Reinking and Bebe Neuwirth, I feel like the poster itself will attract a crazy audience.
Daniel: (hands up, immediately) Okay, okay — focus questioned and retracted. Footloose auditions, and CHIC. Got it. (leaning in — this is the part of the job he actually loves) The CHIC concept, though — riding the wake of Chicago at the Ambassador is smart, genuinely smart, borrowing that iconography while everyone's already primed for it. "Style is the magic sauce of success" — say that whole sentence again in ten years and see if you still believe it exactly the way you do right now. I have a feeling you will, just for different reasons than you think. (softer, more curious) Where are you in it right now, today? Is this a poster and a concept you're carrying around in your head, or is there a venue, a date, a first rehearsal — something on a calendar?
Bobby: Well, I made a set list and I drew out a draft of the poster. I want to open the show in my black Calvins with a tuxedo hanging on a standing form, one pin light on it — and then, during the song, I get dressed up in full. Bow tie and all. I'll open with "Dressing Them Up" from Kiss of the Spider Woman, which I won accolades for in my high school thespian competitions. Since my first job in New York when I arrived, back in September 1995, was dressing windows at the Gap on Broadway and 42nd Street — it all seems like a fitting place to start the story.
Daniel: (genuinely lighting up) "Dressing Them Up." Of course it's that song. Bobby, you have no idea how much sense that makes. You think you picked that song because it won you trophies in high school. You picked it because you've been living inside its whole thesis since September 1995. (catching himself — pulls back, redirects like always) Gap windows, Broadway and 42nd. Your very first job in this city, dressing yourself into someone new, live, in front of everyone. That's not just a fun opening number, Bobby. That's the actual mechanism you use — you get dressed into who you're about to be. You've been doing it since the Gap windows, you're doing it right now with the Bergdorf card and the Gucci sale, you did it walking down West Broadway past stores you couldn't afford like you already owned the block. (the redirect, this one with real weight to it) So here's what I actually want to know: when the bow tie's on, and the lights are up, and you're standing there fully dressed as fabulous — in that moment, right after you finish getting dressed — do you feel like yourself? Or do you feel like you're still playing someone else, just a better-dressed version of him?
Bobby: Neither. I feel like I am stepping into me when I turn twenty-five. By the time I turn twenty-five I will be in my first Broadway show. Lots of black-tie parties. Lots. Jeffrey and his partner took me to the Rainbow Room last weekend. It was epic. We saw Freda Payne sing "Band of Gold." She was fabulous. Poppy — my grandpa — loved that song. But being at the Rainbow Room with Jeffrey, who is actually just a few years older than me, maybe five, who is already producing these amazing touring shows and is going to be a huge Broadway producer one day — I will follow in his footsteps, just onstage instead of off. He suggested maybe doing CHIC at 88 Keys, a piano and cabaret bar in the West Village, instead of Don't Tell Mama's.
"That's the first time tonight you've told me something true without dressing it up first."
Daniel: (something in him goes quiet and soft at "Poppy loved that song" — he doesn't chase it right away, lets it sit) "Stepping into me when I turn twenty-five." That's a good answer, Bobby. Better than the trophy case. That's the first time tonight you've told me something true without dressing it up first. (then, gently, doubling back) Tell me about Poppy for a second. You dropped that in so fast — Freda Payne, "Band of Gold," Poppy loved that song — like it was just a detail. It wasn't just a detail. What was he like? Does he know you're doing all this? Would he have loved the Rainbow Room version of you, or would he have loved the Gap-windows version more? (redirect, warmer this time, not testing) And Jeffrey — someone that close to where you want to be, reaching back for you. What does it feel like, being told, "not Don't Tell Mama's, 88 Keys"? Does it feel like being seen, or does some part of you still feel like you're borrowing someone else's belief in you until you can grow your own?
Bobby: Hmm. Interesting you ask about Poppy. He died when I was ten. My memories of him were so pure and fun. Fishing in Deep Creek. He loved baseball and Barbra Streisand — "the voice of an angel," he would say. I don't think in a million years he would've ever imagined I would live in New York and pursue a career as an actor.
Daniel: (quiet — really quiet, the kind where Daniel isn't performing anything, isn't redirecting, just listening) Ten years old. Deep Creek, fishing, baseball, and Barbra Streisand — "the voice of an angel." That's a real person you're describing, Bobby, not a memory you've smoothed over. You can tell, because it's the only thing you've said tonight that didn't come with a punch line attached. (careful now) You said you don't think he'd have imagined it in a million years — you, New York, an actor. I want to gently push on that, just once. Is that actually true, or is that the story you tell yourself because he's not here to ask? Because a man who loved Streisand's voice like that, who took a ten-year-old fishing and made it feel pure and fun — that doesn't sound like someone who couldn't have imagined you. That sounds like someone who might have seen exactly this coming, and just didn't get the years to say so. (softer, no redirect this time) If he could see you right now — Rainbow Room, Bergdorf card, tuxedo poster, all of it — what do you think he'd actually say?
Bobby: You are quite snarky, you know. "Punch line attached" — clever, you think you are.
Daniel: (grinning, taking the hit) I learned from the best. You've been doing bits at me all night — I had to pick up a few tricks just to keep up. (but doesn't let it fully deflect) Nice try, though. You still haven't told me what Poppy would say.
Bobby: I am a living, breathing punch line.
Daniel: (laughing, but shaking his head) See, that's exactly the move — I ask about your grandfather and you hand me a punch line about yourself instead. Very smooth. Very on-brand. I almost let you get away with it. (gentler, not chasing it anymore) You don't have to answer for him tonight if it's not there yet, Bobby. Some questions you don't get to answer until you're ready, and that's allowed too. I'm not going anywhere — I'll ask you again sometime. (one last soft landing before he lets it go) For what it's worth — a punch line is still a costume. You put it on when the real thing gets too close. I'd know.
• • •
Daniel: (catching the swerve, but going with it) No fire at all, and yet everyone reads you as a Leo. That's kind of perfect, actually — you've built enough presence, enough performance, that people assign you a sign you don't even have. Virgo sun, Gemini rising, Scorpio moon — that's precise, and social, and deep and a little dangerous underneath. That's not nothing, Bobby. That's basically the birth chart of somebody who curates exactly how much of himself gets shown at any given moment. (a small laugh) Virgo's the details, the discipline, the "did I get every stitch of this tuxedo right" energy. Gemini rising is the mask everyone meets first — quick, funny, doing the bit. Scorpio moon is what's actually underneath, running the whole thing, that nobody gets access to unless you decide they do. So if the Leo everyone assumes is the costume — what do you think people would actually see, if they got past Gemini rising to the Scorpio moon part? What's under there that you don't let out much?
Bobby: A wannabe-filthy slut who reads you like a romance novel and knows you better than you know yourself.
Daniel: (laughing, full and real this time) There it is. That's the most honest answer you've given me all night, and you delivered it like a punch line again — but I'll take it, because it's true either way. "Reads you like a romance novel and knows you better than you know yourself" — Bobby, that's not just a Scorpio moon flexing. That's the same intuition we've been circling all night. You size up a room at the Rainbow Room, you clock exactly what Jeffrey's offering you before he finishes the sentence, you knew what song to open CHIC with before you knew why. You read people. You're just currently spending most of that gift on reading rooms for who might sleep with you or cast you, instead of reading yourself. (soft landing, not pushing further) That's fine for tonight. You're twenty-something in July with no AC and a credit card and a grandfather you miss more than you let on. You don't owe me self-actualization on command.
"You've got courage. This is something else."
Daniel: (and here, finally, the frustration and the compassion show up together) "Today's the day." How many times have you said that walking past that door, Bobby? Be honest.
Bobby: More times than Ethel Merman belted out a bawdy top note. But I can't think about that right now. I feel these things, you know — I'll know when exactly the right moment hits. I actually did pop in there the other night, for drinks, and I asked the bartender who does the booking. She just pointed — across the bar, this red-haired woman who looks exactly like Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Big presence. Terrifying, honestly, in the best way. I didn't go over. But I saw her. That counts for something.
Daniel: (a small laugh, equal parts fond and exasperated) You clocked the sea witch and called it a mission accomplished.
Bobby: (already done with this line of questioning, standing now, brushing invisible lint off his black Calvins) Okay, we're not doing this anymore. You've gotten very heavy tonight, very "afterschool special," and frankly I don't love it for you. I have big things happening — Footloose, CHIC, the shoes, my mother's fiftieth — and I don't need a voice in my head making me feel some kind of way about a bar owner who looks like a Disney villain. (pointing, half-joking, half not) I'm putting you in time out, Daniel. Until further notice. Call me back when you acknowledge who actually runs this show.
Daniel: (doesn't fight it — almost smiles, like he expected exactly this) Understood. Time out. I'll wait.
He always did this. Every time I got close to something real, he'd send me away and go be fabulous instead. I let him. What else could I do — I already knew how this part went. I knew about the shoes, and Footloose, and Don't Tell Mama's, and the sea witch behind the bar he never did walk up to that summer. I knew a lot of things Bobby wasn't ready to hear yet. But I also knew something else, something I couldn't tell him even if he'd let me: he was right about one thing. He would feel it, when the moment came. Just not this one. And not for years.
END OF PART ONE — TIME CUT