Tom Shadyac broke through in 1994 with “Ace Ventura,” and went on to direct numerous blockbuster comedies including “Liar, Liar,” “The Nutty Professor,” and “Bruce Almighty.” He was living high as an A-list director – until he fell off a bike four years ago and was stricken with post-concussion syndrome. “After about four or five months of what I consider relative torture,” he recalls. “I simply thought I’m just not going to live very long.”
Needing a change, Shadyac took the radical step of selling off his art-filled mansion and moving to a mobile home community in Malibu. In his new documentary about his experience, “I Am” — which opens this weekend in Los Angeles — he talks about this transformative experience, what’s wrong with the world and how we can fix it.
How did life change following the bike accident?
I discovered that I had post-concussion syndrome, which is the locking-in of the symptoms of a concussion. It’s a sensitivity to light and sound, it’s a ringing in your head, it’s a feeling that you’re not quite there.
The symptoms did recede relatively quickly and I believe it was because of my choice to go on this journey. I had this conversation on my heart for so many years, but my head was saying, “You got to do another blockbuster film. You gotta stay with the studio system, keep going.” And I think that the accident knocked me from my head to my heart and I healed at a much more rapid rate. I’m about 95 percent now, and I feel wonderful.
And this also led to an adjustment in your lifestyle.
We’re told that we’re to get as big a home as we can and then keep the neighbors out. What’s the greatest form of punishment we can give a prisoner? Solitary confinement. We choose a kind of solitary confinement in our own lives, unaware.
When I decided to move to a mobile home community, the first night there I was afraid. I thought, “Oh my goodness, what have I done? People are right! I’m crazy!” But after I “survived” that night, I discovered you have to walk through fear to break it down. When those walls come down and when you embrace your communities, I found that beauty follows.
Your new movie, “I Am,” raises the notion that some see an unfettered pursuit of material goods as a sickness. Studies have shown higher instances of psychopathic behavior in places like Wall Street.
Those who are so disconnected that they are able to lay off 5,000 people and wake up the next day and be fine — they are reflections of the demons that still live inside us. They grow from a philosophy that we are not brothers and sisters, that the job of life is to stand out amongst your peers, to be number one, to separate yourself from the pack, to win, to win, to win. Change doesn’t come from saying, “Boy, Wall Street is greedy.” It comes from us saying, “I don’t want to be a part of that.”
The statement you have to make when you increase your salary in my business is, “I’m more valuable than the other director that you might be able to hire, so you gotta pay me more.” That’s a philosophy that I don’t support. People say, “Well, you can take the money and you can give it away.” But I don’t want to be greedy now to be generous later.
Most studies show that the rich are happier than the rest of us.
I just financed a documentary on happiness called “Happy,” and the studies in positive psychology show money unquestionably makes you happier when it buys you out of the burden of homelessness, hunger, any sort of poverty, you need an operation or an education. But that levels at around $50,000. Above that, the agreement seems to be that it can turn your life into a more complex journey and it can decrease happiness.
How does the industry view you after this ordeal?
The people I’ve shown the movie to have been really beautiful in their response. There are a lot of people that haven’t seen it and we’ll have to see what they think. I believe in my heart of hearts they will look at this and hopefully be affected by it. It’s about waking up to your own heart and whatever your own heart tells you to do rather than your society tells you to do.
The industry can be so unfair.
It’s all right. There are worse injustices in the world. But this is where I’m at, and if I’m not welcome, then I accept it.
