Confronting the 'bully'

During this time, the man we simply call Louis B. has seen Hollywood stars at their best, worst and weirdest.

He shares some of these stories in the Sun's daily five-part series, Hollywood Uncovered.

In Part 4, Louis B. reveals one of the most difficult and stressful assignments in a movie writer's life -- interviewing Hollywood's notorious bully Tommy Lee Jones.

With Tommy Lee Jones, what you see is what you get!!

He plays a great screen bully because essentially that's what he is.

The first time I interviewed Jones was back in 1989 for the espionage thriller The Package.

Little was known about Jones at the time, so it only seemed natural to ask him about growing up in Texas and finally returning there to live.  That was all I asked.

"It's none of your "F-ING" business. You have no right to ask about my private life. You were invited here to talk about this movie and that's all we're going to do."

What was even more intimidating than his reply was the fact Jones stood up to deliver his tirade.

He sat down slowly, eyeing each journalist in the room, and then asked for the next question.

Two years later during the interviews for JFK, Lee kicked over an interview table as he stalked out of the interview hall. Director Oliver Stone and a half-dozen press agents scurried after him.

When he finally came to our table, Jones told us "you were so trivial, I just figured the session was at an end and I'd get a bit of exercise."

Later, journalists at the fated table explained Jones had objected to questions about his college days as Al Gore's roommate and their campus protests.

At the 1994 junket for Blown Away in which he played a mad bomber, Jones was asked point blank about his reputation as an on-screen and off-screen bully.

After a menacing pause, Jones replied: "I will not dignify that remark with an answer."

Joel Schumacher, who directed Jones in The Client and Batman Forever, admitted Jones "gave Jim Carrey a horrible time on Batman. He treated Jim with disdain and treated him horribly."

Without much prompting, Schumacher volunteered that it was time "the industry stopped pussy-footing around Tommy Lee. He's a bully.... Not all the talent in the world excuses that kind of behaviour."

By the time we gathered for our interviews for Volcano, Jones had recently separated from Kimberlea Cloughley, his lovely wife of 14 years. It fell to me to ask if he'd drawn on his own divorce to play the bitter, recently-divorced hero of Volcano.

The press notes had Jones quoted as saying he sympathized with the emotional plight of his character.

When I referred to the quote in the press notes, he grabbed the notes from me, put on his reading glasses and pondered the quote before staring me in the face and answering in a slow, deliberate tone and threw my note cards on the floor.

"You know I'm not comfortable talking about such things and have no right to try to manipulate me into these conversations."

He got up and left.

DISCLAIMER; The opinions expressed in these articles in no way reflect the opinions of the webmistress. They are merely articles found in various newspapers, magazines and on the internet etc. worldwide. They were already out there before you saw them here.