Comic book legend Stan Lee died last week.
For a number of you, I’m sure that was incredibly sad news. I wasn’t exactly upbeat about it, but I wasn’t crushed either.
My reaction (or namely, lack of reaction) led to a discussion among a few friends of mine whose outcome I think is warranted to share with you here.
One of my friends, for example, described himself as “absolutely devastated”. This friend had no relationship with Stan Lee apart from being an avid consumer of Marvel movies and some comic books.
You could describe my reaction to the news, however, as “undisturbed”. To me, Stan Lee was a 95 year old man who lived an incredibly full life. It was his time. Plus – most importantly – he’s just a human. To me, I shouldn’t mourn his passing more deeply simply because he was a celebrity with “legendary comic book creator” status.
This is where I lose a bunch of you – and I’m quite sure why – but let me spin you a tale as to why I feel like this.
I don’t necessarily prescribe my position to you – you’re free to feel as you wish – but I do believe that you can learn some valuable lessons from it that will help your career.
(I know, that’s a weird idea – just roll with me here)
The Movies
Once upon a time, I worked in the movie business.
No – I didn’t work on anything you’ve likely heard of. All of the films I worked on were independent releases. Some of them saw theatres, and at least one had a DVD release.
(I got a copy of that one on Amazon and I’m actually super proud of how it turned out – I never watch anything I’ve worked on normally, I’ve skipped pretty much every premiere I was invited to)
That being said, I have worked with plenty of famous people and a handful of actors you know.
I worked with Ed Asner right around the time he won an Oscar for Up (he was the old man, if you don’t know – I’ve never seen it).
I worked with Meat Loaf Aday – who you would know from Bat out of Hell, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Fight Club.
I also worked with Edward Furlong – who you would know as John Connor from Terminator 2.
Now, just like any normal human being, when I first laid eyes on celebrities (or other people who were famous to me – like singers in bands I liked), I was mildly starstruck.
To my surprise, that didn’t last long.
If you’ve never met any celebrities, you can see their flaws daily. They’re all often overblown in tabloids and even on your favorite “music business news” websites.
But all of those things provide an extremely weird, skewed perspective. They cause you to look at these people from a distance and make judgements on their lives and what they’re doing as an outsider. You believe you have context because of the stories you read – but more often than not you don’t actually have any context.
For whatever reason (I’m not extremely versed in the psychology) you tend to view people with notoriety in a different frame from yourself. You believe that they’re not like you, you can’t actually achieve what they’ve done.
They’re special in your mind. They’ve got connections and contacts. They lived in the right city, they met the right people. Whatever – somehow, for some reason, you don’t see them as your peers in humanity.
Meat Loaf
There are a multitude of stories that changed my outlook from seeing celebrities or high achievers as “amazing” and “untouchable” to… well… just like me. But I’ve got two I’m going to share with you.
The first, is when Meat Loaf and I bonded over a mutual love for bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits.
Yep, you read that right. Of all the things I could talk about with Meat Loaf (“did you share any scenes with Brad Pitt?? What was THAT like?!”) – we chatted about how good bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits are.
Why?
Well, we were on set, waiting to shoot. I’m one to feel that it’s inappropriate to come at my coworkers (in this case, a known celebrity) with questions an interviewer or fan would ask them. I want to treat them like regular people – because they are, and we both have a job to do.
We were shooting at a diner, and there was a handwritten menu sign that had a listing for bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits.
I don’t remember word-for-word the conversation, and if you ever asked Meat Loaf I’m sure he would never remember this much less remember my name. But, it went something dumb like –
“Mmmm. Bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits. I could sure go for one of those right now.”
“You’re telling me. I love that kind of food – man, I’m getting hungry!”
And I found it absolutely hilarious – bullshitting me and killing time or not – that Meat Loaf and I are fond of the same breakfast biscuit.
That carried on shortly before we began working again – but I could’ve literally sat with him and talked about breakfast food for 10 minutes… just like a normal person.
John Connor
Ed Furlong’s first (to my knowledge) huge role was as young Jon Connor in Terminator 2. He’s also known for being in American History X, and I’m sure other movies I don’t know of (I’m not a giant movie buff).
But for me – he’s the star of a silly, ridiculous scene that could’ve easily taken place at a raucous, stupid party with your friends.
The day’s set for the movie we were shooting on was a small farm. Without going into details of the movie (it doesn’t matter), Ed’s character was supposed to be out of place doing work on a farm – a “fish out of water” so to speak.
This also just so happened to be a day where the film’s producers (those who were financially backing the movie) were on set, as well.
In one of our final shots before breaking for food, Ed had to act like he was caring for a baby goat. He did so, we cut – and almost immediately Ed flipped the baby goat around gently and feigned air-humping it for a second or two.
In front of the entire crew and producers.
Now – I do not care that Ed did that. My memory says that I cracked up and was super surprised.
What does matter to me is this – that sort of scene could’ve easily taken place among my friends in college, or various silly/dumb/goofy groups of friends I’ve hung out with since. Perhaps not the baby goat part, but certainly acting a fool and being completely outlandish in semi-public.
The Moral
Both of the men in these goofy stories have found success in an incredibly difficult industry. Both are entertainment industry professionals, and most of you who read this know of their work. Between the two of them, they’ve filmed movies with stars like Brad Pitt and Arnold Schwarzenegger. That’s not small peanuts.
But they also sit around and chat about biscuits and air-hump things for laughs.
My point is this – you definitely feel comfortable with the latter. Without a doubt, you have some favorite guilty pleasure foods and on occasion you act a fool among friends and perhaps even colleagues.
These two – movie stars – are no different than you. They’re just human.
Perhaps they were in the right place at the right time – but they also worked to be prepared for the opportunities they received before they encountered those opportunities.
There’s no reason you can’t do the same.
You don’t need to look at your idols, famous people – even those who work in your industry – with some idealized reverence. You have every capability in your bones to do what they do.
Additionally – they’re also just as stupid, dumb, and boring as you are. Perhaps even more than you are.
(On occasion I’ve met famous people that are essentially wastes of space – I know you can do better than them)
So, I encourage you to pose this question to yourself today –
If you’re truly no different in your humanity than someone as famous as Stan Lee, what is stopping you and why are you stopping yourself from making headway on your goals?
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