Christmas Trees, Angel Wings, and Giving Up Bacon
Nappoholics Anonymous is a weekly column featuring twelve random thoughts by actor Tony Nappo. Some are funny, some are poignant, some bother him, and some make him weep from sadness while others make him weep for joy. Here are his thoughts: unfiltered, uncensored, and only occasionally unsafe for work.
1. My cousin Tom once told me that life is like a Christmas tree. Someone’s always breaking his balls.
2. I thought I was watching a replay of the MLS Cup final online today for forty-five minutes before I realized it was just a bunch of guys out going for a jog together.
3. Bono seems to be going through an Atom Egoyan stage.
4. Top Five Musically Inspired Diarrhea Nicknames
5- Creedence Rearwater Revival
4- Poo Jam
3- Runs-DMC
2- Squirtin Cummings
1- Ass Tiger
5. Kirk Douglas turned one hundred years old on the weekend. In its own defence, an irate 2016 said, “He doesn’t know what fucking year it is!!!!”
6. If The Shining had been shot with a grant from the Northern Ontario film fund, the hallway scenes would probably have looked exactly like this.
7. This was my favourite text exchange ever before any show I’ve ever done. With the brilliant Jon Dore.
Me- You comin?
Jon- I am on my way.
Me- You are a rock star.
Jon- Don’t suck.
Me- Fuck you.
Jon- Macbeth.
8. A year ago I was on set with an actor doing her first job. The director told her to just throw her line away. She said, “You mean don’t say it?”
I laughed my ass off not because she didn’t understand the direction but because in almost thirty years of doing this shit, her literal response had never crossed my mind. And it made WAY MORE SENSE.
9.
10. Every time the Leafs don’t blow a third-period lead, an angel gets its wings.
11. Acting is one of the only vocations where people actually clap for you when you are finished doing your job. It’s no coincidence that it attracts a certain personality type. Whenever you are wrapped on a film—meaning right after you have finished doing the last take of your last scene on a project— it’s customary that an announcement be made and the crew will give you a round of applause. It’s just a quick moment—a few handshakes and hugs—and then you leave set for the last time while everybody else moves on to the next shot and carries on working without you. Still, it’s a very nice feeling while it lasts.
What’s hard to wrap your head around as a young actor is that when you nail a “big” scene—one where you are really challenged—a scene that you have either been anticipating hungrily or scared shitless of, nobody really says anything about it. You just move on to the next scene. You’re left feeling emptied out, relieved, satisfied, maybe even proud, but nobody makes a big deal of it because, after all, you’re SUPPOSED to do that. That’s what you were hired to do. And if it doesn’t go well, thankfully, nobody really says anything about that, either. At least, not to your face. Someone will still bring you a warm-up jacket and a cappuccino. You’ll still get paid.
These moments after the big scenes are so important. Maybe, in part, because they are strangely private. Because you can only ever experience them alone. And maybe because no matter what anyone would have said anyway, only you truly know how well you did or didn’t do in the scene.
To me, these moments, where you are at your most vulnerable—privately and honestly assessing your own work as the public pressure dissipates and you simultaneously realize that it’s over now and that you aren’t going to get any more chances to fix it—these moments are the closest that set life ever gets to feeling like real life. They are where an actor’s confidence gets built up or eroded over the years.
12. Fine! I’ll eat the dog too, but I ain’t giving up bacon. No fucking way.
Tony Nappo
Tony is Italian, he’s from Scarborough, he’s an actor, he’s a father, he’s a really good house painter, and he doesn’t believe that most things matter, ultimately, at all.
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