The Scariest Place John Cusack Has Ever Been
This article was published in the November 29, 2007 issue of Vanity Fair number 47 and we are presenting it today to retrace the changes of which Vanity has been the protagonist in the last 20. What was he afraid of when he was a child? “The dark, monsters. The black man and the ogre that hide under your bed… The same fears that all children have.” And now? “Endless interviews.” Seriously. “Why, could you tell me what you are afraid of?” Of course. “What?” I don’t want to suffer. “But you will suffer anyway. You know that, right?” Maybe I will die quickly. “You may go away quickly, but you can’t avoid suffering anyway.” Are you afraid of pain too? “Yes.” More physical or psychological? “Psychological. Because the physical one ends sooner or later, the other one never stops tormenting you.” Not even when you die? “No, not even when you die”.
The Interview with John Cusack
The “scary” exchange of words takes place during the interview with the American actor John Cusack, 41 years old, the one from High Fidelity, Being John Malkovich and The Perfect Match with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts. Cusack is in London to promote two films at the same time: the equally “scary” 1408, which comes out in Italy on November 23, and Grace Is Gone, the story of a man left alone with two daughters after his wife’s death in the war in Iraq: presented at the last London Film Festival, it does not yet have a distribution in Italy. 1408 is not exactly a horror, but it is based on a story by Stephen King and, even if there are few severed limbs, it is still scary.
The Questions Asked in the Interview
The protagonist, played by Cusack, is a writer specialized in cursed places. He arrives in the hotel lobbies with the wrinkled pants and the bored face of an accountant on a business trip and asks the reception to be able to sleep in a room infested with dark presences. Of course, he doesn’t believe in ghosts. And, more than that, he doesn’t even believe in the work he does. Which leads him to promote his books in bookstores infested by a handful of readers. The few interested in his presentations have the intellectual vitality of zombies. Like the lady who raises her hand and, with the trepidation of someone who is about to ask the question that has not let her sleep for years, asks: “What is the scariest place you have ever been?” “Let me think. Nobody ever asked me that,” he replies sarcastically. The right answer, in reality, is that he still has to go there: it is room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel, where he will have to spend an entire night and at least three quarters of the film. I’m thinking of the scene of the lady while, ahead of the appointment, I’m walking around the hotel. So, immediately after turning on the recorder, I ask him: “What is the scariest place you have ever been?”
