One little fish finds himself in a big pond

In 1998, at the urging of screenwriter John August, “Big Fish,” my first book, was optioned by Columbia Pictures. For years, nothing happened, and I was told by those in the know that the chances were good that nothing ever would. Then, in 2002, producers were attached, Tim Burton came aboard and all of a sudden they started making a movie. Since that time, I’ve lived two distinct lives. In one life -- what I’ll call the real one -- I live in Chapel Hill, N.C., where I’m a writer of small quiet literary novels, a husband, a father -- just an average guy really. But in the other life, the magical one, I’m a jet-setting movie guy in Movieland, flying from coast to coast from week to week, staying in the best hotels, meeting big stars and sitting tonight at the best table at the Golden Globes . . . wait, no, that’s somebody else. I’ll be at home with my wife and friends in the comfort of my warm, but razzle-dazzle-less, family room.

This is a journal of my two lives.

*

Feb. 12, 2003: I board a plane for Montgomery, Ala., to visit the set of “Big Fish” for the first time. I’ve sort of invited myself down, so it’s all on my dime -- the air fare, the rent-a-car, the hotel. I drive myself to the airport and park in one of the satellite lots and take the bus in ....It doesn’t matter, though, because I am going to the set! I’ve never been to a set before. I have no idea what to expect. In fact, almost every day from here on out, I never have any idea what to expect.

They’re filming on Jackson Island, a few miles outside of Montgomery, in the middle of nowhere. Bruce Cohen, one of the producers, meets me near the woods and then takes me through them until we get to the point where ... they’re not woods anymore. Not real woods, anyway. We’re walking through an elaborate homemade forest, with scary roots and threatening moss, the one Ewan McGregor walks through on his way out into Spectre. We see what he sees at the end of the trail -- this town they built. Not the facade of a town, but an actual town, with buildings you can walk into, and every detail, down to the drapes and doorknobs, all there.

This is the town I made up one morning in the laundry room in my basement four years ago, and now here it is: I can touch it.

*

Feb. 13: The next day my wife, Laura, flies in and we go to where they’re actually filming. I should explain that I have terrible star-sighting mojo. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real famous person. This carries over to other things too: I went to Australia once and was the only one on the bus who didn’t see a kangaroo. But today all that’s going to change. I am going to see a star: They’re captive, after all.

In the space of about five minutes, we meet Richard Zanuck, Helena Bonham Carter, Billy Crudup and Tim Burton. And they are all so nice. The first thing Tim says to me is: “Without you none of us would be here.” The next day we meet Albert Finney and Matthew McGrory, the giant. The biggest star in show bidness. I call home and tell Henry, my 10-year-old son, that I met a real giant and that he was a very nice man. Henry is slightly impressed.

*

Feb. 14: We return to Chapel Hill, where we are greeted -- in the hallway inside the front door -- by a dead mouse. We have three cats, weekend killers. This will become a motif of our visits from our plain world to this other magical one: Almost every time we come home, the cats will have left us something dead.

*

March 6: Since filming began in January, there’s been a slight change of direction in my conversations with people. Whereas before it was about writing, the books, how I’m doing, what I’m working on, now it’s all about the movie. I get paid more attention in general, as if I’m all of a sudden a better writer now. It’s fun, and distracting, and I wonder how much credit I can really take for this enterprise. It did start with my book, but it’s not as if I got a bunch of friends together and said: “Let’s put on a show in the barn out back. Albert, you can play the dad!”

*

March 23: I’ve been trying to decide whether I should be the kind of author who recedes genteelly into the background or the kind who begs for a small role in the movie. I decide on the latter. I figure, when am I ever going to have another chance to be directed by Tim Burton?

John August, the amazing screenwriter, has been sending me drafts of the script as he writes them, and so I’ve already picked out my part. It’s in the very first scene, when they’re carrying a casket to the graveyard, but they drop it, and the corpse rolls out of the casket and down the hill.... I want to be the corpse: I figure it’s not much of a stretch.

Unfortunately, this entire section is cut from the movie before it even begins filming, and I end up nabbing the role of the young Sandra’s econ professor. I have my own trailer, my own hair stylist -- the works. Tim directs me. He says “Action!” and “Cut!” just like they do in the movies. He seems to be happy with my performance and I’m thinking “Yes! I could do this!” For a few heady minutes I realize I picked the wrong career -- I’m an actor!

The feeling soon passes.

My wife, Laura, also gets a part but sadly it is later cut. She says, “I guess I was sleeping with the wrong person.”

*

April 14: This is crazy. For the first time in my life, I have an actual phone appointment. I gather this sort of thing happens all the time, but it’s a first for me, an appointment to talk on the telephone, at least since I was in high school and a girl said I’ll call you at 10 and never did. But there is somebody I need to talk to in Los Angeles. I spoke to his assistant, who wondered if tomorrow at 3 would be a good time to have a conversation. I said yes, so we put it on our calendars: 3 p.m. April 14.

Damn if the phone doesn’t ring at 3:09.

Why the Hollywood phone call? I’m writing a screenplay. Ever since reading the “Big Fish” screenplay, I’ve been drawn to the form. I’m also touring for my third novel, “The Watermelon King.” With all the hoopla surrounding the movie and everything, I’m expecting big crowds. So with hope in my heart I fly into Atlanta, make the connection to Memphis, rent a car, drive two hours to Oxford, Miss., and wait for them to arrive.

Two people come. Two. The next day I get to drive down to Jackson, three hours, where almost four times that many people come. Seven people. But then again, I’m reading with Robert Stone. I think that helps.

*

June 24: I’m back in Montgomery for book business. The movie wrapped at the end of April and it’s all different now. During the filming the whole town was electric with activity. Steve Buscemi eating breakfast at a diner, Danny DeVito out shopping. But the famous have left Alabama for Paris. Now it’s just normal, unfamous people everywhere. It’s a little sad. Normal life is sad.

*

July-August: Trips to L.A.: 1.

Dead animals: 8 voles, 2 mice, 3 birds.

*

Oct. 13: This is the day I’m being flown out for notes on the screenplay I’m working on. Flash forward: The meeting itself lasts 35 minutes. A good meeting, a very helpful meeting, but 35 minutes! This is how they get me out there for what is essentially a half-an-hour meeting.

When I wake up this morning, a black sedan is waiting for me in the driveway. I shower and dress, and before I am halfway out the door a man hops out of the car and takes my bag, drops it in the trunk. The driver helps me check my bags at the curbside check-in, and when the plane boards I don’t have to wait in that long line, because I’m going first class. First class! I get to watch all those poor suckers file past me on the way to coach. Coach! What a distant memory that is!

Going coast to coast is nothing in first class, folks. I spread out. Nap. A few hours later -- voila -- Los Angeles.

I call Laura as soon as I get there, just to wallow in the unbelievableness of it with her, but before I can share she tells me (1) I apparently forgot to put the trashcan on the dining room table because Polly our dog got into it and spread its contents everywhere, in every room, over every surface and (2) did I pay the power bill? Because there was a funny, threatening kind of letter hanging on the front door knob and (3) there was an accident on I-40 and she was stuck in traffic for two hours coming home from work.

Now what did I want to tell her?

*

Oct. 14: After the 35-minute screenplay meeting, I drive out to Culver City, where Richard Zanuck is waiting to show me the movie. This will be my first time and my heart’s beating kind of fast. The movie’s not quite done; some of the special effects aren’t in yet, and the music isn’t all there, but it’s there enough for me to see. He sets me up in a theater, and I watch it, all by myself, this movie based on a book I wrote.

And it’s astounding. It really is. And different. I knew it was going to be different, having read the screenplay, but I’m caught off-guard at how the images onscreen conflict with those I had in my own mind. It’s like talking to someone on the telephone everyday, someone you’ve never met, and after a while you begin to create a picture of what the person looks like, and then you finally meet them and realize how far off you were. Not necessarily in a bad way, just a different one.

As I watch it I keep telling myself, “I am watching a movie based on a book I wrote ...” but saying it, even over and over, doesn’t make it any easier to understand the way I understand the rest of my life. Like paying the bill or cleaning up after the dog. It doesn’t make the same kind of sense.

*

November: Not much happens in November ...

*

December: ... but December! December is a whirlwind month.

*

Dec. 2: I’ve got car problems. My old Honda needs a serious tuneup, but I haven’t taken it in yet because Laura and I haven’t been able to get our schedules in sync. But when the limo comes this morning to pick me up, I make an inquiry with the nice man in the hat, and the limo follows me to the garage, where I drop off the car and then speed away to the airport, for my flight to Los Angeles and lunch with Jessica Lange and the Hollywood foreign press.

First, though, two things: In first class this time everyone gets their own DVD with a selection of movies to choose from. The headphones are Bose and I realize something I never have before: Even in first class, planes are loud. The headphones cut the noise out completely, and so when I get to Los Angeles and check into my hotel -- I ask the limo driver there to take me to the Beverly Center, where there’s a Bose store, and I buy a pair, just like that. And they have changed my life. Noise is my enemy, which I have defeated.

The second thing: I am staying at the Four Seasons at Beverly Hills! Who knows what’s happening at home at this moment: The cats are probably killing something, and the dog is neck-deep in the trash, but all that is a world away as I wallow in the luxuriousness that is this place, where the concierge makes dinner reservations for me, and then sends directions to the restaurant to my room, in a small ocher envelope, slipped beneath the door; where Ben and J.Lo give me a high-five as I walk into the bar -- well, that last part I made up. I still haven’t run into anybody famous.

*

Dec. 3: The limo picks me up in front of the Four Seasons at 12:30 and takes me to Crustacean, a restaurant with fish in the floor where the Hollywood foreign press (the association of which are the folks who give out the Golden Globes) is having a Q&A; with Jessica Lange. I arrive just as she’s leaving (of course). “Big Fish” paraphernalia is all over the place.

I go from table to table, talking about the book, and the movie, and the movie and the book, and they ask me whether I think it should be considered a drama or a comedy. I try to take the politic route and say that the greatest dramas are ones with comedy in them, a comment that’s met with thoughtful nods. (“Big Fish” will end up being nominated by them for best motion picture, musical or comedy.) My job here is done.

*

Dec. 4: Today is the Big Premiere, but it’s in New York City, not Los Angeles, where I am, so I have to take a plane from sunny California to wintry New York City. Laura and Henry are meeting me at the Ritz-Carlton, on the Park, which, I have to say, is every bit as nice as the Four Seasons. Note: It’s all about the pillows. Down, fluffy pillows make all the difference.

OK. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I have a publicist. But everybody does. Even people you think would never have one do, and the only reason you think they don’t have one is because the publicist wants you to think that. Luckily I have a good one, Nancy Kane. She set Laura up with hair and makeup and has even scored her a beautiful Lulu Guinness purse to carry.

The Ziegfeld Theatre is about five blocks from the hotel; even so, it takes us a good 30 minutes to get there in traffic (at least the part of the stretch limo that we’re in takes that long, maybe the front part got there earlier). And there it is, right in front of us when we de-limo: the red carpet.

Nancy swoops us up and guides us up the red carpet, where, out of nowhere, without preamble or warning of any kind, flashbulbs start a-poppin’. Hundreds of them, all at the same time. It’s like watching the night sky explode before (and into) your very eyes. In a matter of seconds, Laura, Henry and I are legally blind. Then comes the chorus unlike any I have ever heard: Hundreds of people calling out my name! Daniel! Daniel! Over here, Daniel! You missed me, over here in the corner! Daniel Daniel Daniel! It is crazy. Nancy leads us from bank to photographing bank, where in the course of 90 seconds our picture is taken more than it has been cumulative to that point in our lives. We are led inside the theater, and it’s like “The Wizard of Oz”: Everybody is there! Ewan McGregor and Danny DeVito and Steve Buscemi and Tim Burton (“You were there, you were there, and you were there too!”) and all the others. Even John August. And we all gather ‘round for a group photo, and then sit down to watch the movie, which is truly amazing.

The after-party theme was circus, and so you had your strongman and your man on stilts and your fire-breathers and hundreds and hundreds of people some of them very famous and all I could think was if it hadn’t been for that book I wrote, that book that didn’t even break the 200-page mark, that book I wrote in the mornings and afternoons in the laundry room in the basement of a rented house -- if not for that, none of this would be happening. That was a dream I liked.

*

Dec. 7: Caught in a blizzard. Flight home is delayed, delayed, delayed, then canceled. Stuck in airport with wife, child, mother-in-law. Finally get flight out to Washington, D.C., but our connection there is also canceled, so we spend the night near the airport, get on a 6 a.m. flight the next morning, and have the limo driver stop off at the garage where I pick up my car. We’re home. The head of a bird (cardinal?) has been placed with artistic precision in the exact middle of the kitchen floor. Note to self: Get bells for cats. Stop the madness.

*

Dec. 12: Second premiere. This one in Montgomery, Ala. Bruce Cohen, one of the producers, is there, and he and I receive a resolution from the Legislature of Alabama, commending us for our role in “Big Fish.” Many of the audience members are extras, or landowners, and you can see them pointing at the screen through this scene or that, saying, “That’s my back yard!” Or “That’s my car!” The swimming pool in the movie? They built that. A real one. It’s still there, in someone’s backyard. Nice for them.

*

Dec. 13: Third premiere. This one in Birmingham, my hometown. A fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House. Bruce Cohen is there, and he and I get a commendation from the governor. My mother is there too. By the end of the movie she is crying so much and shaking so hard that I think she is going to have a heart attack and die at the Birmingham premiere. She doesn’t. It’s a wonderful night.

*

Dec. 14: Laura and I return home. No dead animals anywhere, at least none where we can see them. Sometimes you just have to wait until their smell gives them away. That’s the way it is when you have cats and they like to kill things and hide them beneath the sofa.

*

Dec. 17: There’s a screening of “Big Fish” for the Writers Guild, and Sony wants John August and I there for a Q&A; afterward. John lives in Los Angeles so he can drive in, but they have to fly me in and put me up at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills again. For some reason I am upgraded to a room on the ninth floor, with a wrap-around balcony, from which I can see all of Los Angeles. At night the city glitters as though the moon were being reflected off of everybody’s perfect teeth. From the balcony I gaze toward the mountains and see that one side of a seven-story building has been transformed into a billboard for “Big Fish.” That gorgeous image with the dark trees and the golden landscape.

Seven stories high.

I try to make it linger, this experience, as though I am discovering it for the first time every succeeding second I stare. And apparently it worked, because it lingers still. There will be more plane rides in my future, more limos, a brush or two with garish fame -- but this? This is it, this moment, the one which I would never have allowed myself to dream of because who would ever even think to dream it? That a writer, just this guy really, me, would see the name of his book seven stories high.

*

Jan. 12, 2004: The movie opens nationwide and for a brief moment appears to unseat “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” as No. 1 movie at the box office. Officially, it is No. 2. It’s all good, though I am home, having a root canal.

True story.