I have spent the greater part of my life in a hotel room with seven or eight kids, looking after everyone, sorting out fights, wiping noses, handing out towels, not having a clean towel left for me.
There was a kind of physical anarchy that dominated most of my younger life. I was always too skinny, not hairy enough, my voice jumped around. It was a thing that drove me away from towel lines in gym class.
I was one of those that didn't so much go to the discos or the clubs to drink. I went with a towel around my neck. I was ready to sweat!
I think we felt like we'd done so much as young kids that we didn't know how to top ourselves. We were like, 'Is this where it ends? Is this as good as it gets? Maybe we're done. Throw in the towel.'
My mother has stories of leaving me in the bath as small kid, like a 3-year-old, and there being mirrors on the side, and her going to get a towel and coming back in, and me making faces at myself, like, 'Now I'm happy. Now I'm sad.'
I worked in IT, which is all boys, and I was the queen of the boys. That's what I did. I was the one who knew where the paper towels were, which was very important. And I organized happy hours and things like that.
I've ruined a lot of hotel towels. I did a shoot in San Francisco and stayed at the Mandarin Oriental. I must have ruined thousands of dollars worth of towels. I dye my hair once a week. The dye is not temporary. It stains everything. It stains tiles, that's how powerful it is.
In Rio Bravo when Duke makes love to Feathers, the scene dissolves to the next morning where we see him putting on his vest and almost humming. It was subtle, but you knew what happened. Give me a towel and some blankets any day!
If the going gets tough, you stay in there and take your beating like a man. That's what we sign up for, and that's all I meant when I said my corner don't throw in towels.
The corner is there to help you clean your cuts up and put your Vaseline on, not to throw in the towel.
