Treasure Hunting

Chuck wonders if acting is the ultimate "Fool's Gold."

By Chuck Nice

I just recently moved into a new home -- by "new" I mean a self-renovated 1917 relic that has sucked the life out me-- but I'm settling in and working on a blood transfusion. Moving serves as a spring board for renewal; you rummage through all of your belongings asking yourself things like "Should I keep that beret that I wore for Halloween c. 1998? We had such a good time at that party."  The answer: Take a picture of it and toss it like a bad relationship - which for me means letting go, fretting incessantly, going back, realizing you made a mistake by doing so and then finally letting go. So as I suffered through this agonizing process with all of my belongings, I came across a DVD that I hadn't watched: Fool's Gold starring Kate Hudson and a shirtless Matthew McConaughey. Rather than just throwing it out I decided to watch it. I now know why they call it Fool's Gold, because if you're in search of cinematic treasure, this film will make you feel like a damned fool; but I'm sure women must have enjoyed Matthew McConaughey's undulating pecs (I'm not jealous at all).   

There really is no need to synopsize the movie except to say that Kate Hudson (Tess Finnegan) and Matthew McConaughey (Ben Finnegan) are a recently divorced couple searching for treasure off the coast of a tropical Caribbean island. The reason for their separation is that Tess feels as if she's wasted eight years of her life chasing a pipe dream while Ben is convinced that they will ultimately succeed, because his philosophy on treasure hunting is: If you miss by an inch, you miss by a mile. I took two things away from this movie: 1) Being a successful actor is truly a great life. I'm not talking about the red carpet and lavish clothes, or even palatial homes and fancy cars; I'm talking about the ability to get paid for taking a three-month vacation in the tropics while spending most of the time on a 200 ft. yacht 2) Anyone who lives that life started out by embarking on a journey akin to hunting for treasure, and along the way there were probably many times he or she felt foolish for doing so.  It was only a willingness to persevere through their ostensible foolishness that elevated them to a status where they could receive obscene amounts of money for taking a three month holiday on a luxury yacht.  

Film making is a tedious process where cameras and lighting have to be rearranged to capture every angle. When you watch a movie, every time you see a different angle most likely it took a couple of hours to set it up. As a result, it takes hours of footage to produce minutes of the final cut. Since the actor is only necessary when the cameras are rolling, most of his or her time on the set is spent sitting and waiting (this is probably why actors willingly accept roles in horrible films that are shot in exotically beautiful locations). The lion's share of their time at work is spent waiting to do what they are actually paid to do. I'm not diminishing acting as a profession because I have been in a couple films and I know how arduous it can be, but I'm recognizing that film acting is one of a few vocations where paid vacations are literally, well... paid vacations. It's no small coincidence these two words are separated by one small letter.

I'm a stand-up comic, an actor, and a television host, and when I started in this business there were many times I felt like a total ass because I couldn't pay my bills, or buy the latest gadgets, or even buy groceries (which is why you work in restaurants). During those times I felt like I was searching for sunken treasure or fool's gold and sometimes I still do. But after watching this movie I know that Ben Finnegan was right, "If you miss by an inch, you miss by a mile," so I'm going to keep diving because I really need a vacation.