MY FRIEND ZACK

How do you write about someone who is a mentor, a friend, an inspiration, sometimes the boss, sometimes the student, and also the inspired? What words are adequate to describe the breadth of experience shared, the depth, of commitments made, and fulfilled — seen through to the end — when the cost was higher than we understood?

It would be much easier to write of Hollywood, of the movies we made, the actors and their personalities, the human foibles, the salacious stories, the risen and the felled, and also the deep dedication to a craft, because to make something great you can never get away from that, from the work, the education and training that allowed it, and sometimes the sacrifice that gave it weight. Oh, shit, I've already gone too deep, past the surface, and without one detail, one story about a moment of weakness that might become a predatory journalist's headline. Well, this isn't about that.

Instead, how about I tell you the story of doing a thing that I said I would, and giving everything to that? Of being given the freedom and support to do a job the way I believed it should be done, and that only I could do?

I came from a place where not doing what you said you could do might get you killed, or worse, kill your partner. I learned my values in those high places. When I said I would do a thing I did it, regardless of the cost. I committed to my climbing partners. I could live for them because I was willing to die for them. And that made me a certain kind of man, one you could count on if I invited you to tie-in to the rope with me, if I allowed you to.

When I descended from those mountains my values came with me, and together, we tried to integrate with life in the valley. I gravitated toward work that mattered, where lives depended on the outcome; military training, of course, and also product development, clothing systems, personal safety equipment, and speaking gigs where I tied what we did up there, and the extreme consequences of failure, to the threats faced when the opposition is sentient and unpredictable rather than passive and relatively known.

I could never not be myself. Even when the phone rang from a Los Angeles area code.

My first jobs with Zack Snyder were right in my wheelhouse: climbing, mountain safety, exploring what was possible in the context of people doing things in extreme environments. These were quick commercial hits, easy to manage (physically and psychologically), with a beginning, middle and end, the feedback more or less immediate, and the conclusion generally satisfying.

Then one day the phone rang and the conversation carried a lot more weight. It was a movie, one hundred times longer than any previous gig, with more responsibility attached to my performance, and more uncertainty. I said no to the job but offered to find someone who could do what I do, and was doing in my own, invitation-only gym at the time. When I explained the situation to my wife she said that if I didn't take the job she would change the locks and file for divorce. While others were gagging to suck any cock in Hollywood I had to be dragged kicking and screaming toward Gehenna and whatever future sacrifices it held.

That first job was overwhelming but I was still at an age where I could absorb it. I thought I could train 35 guys on my own, and when that proved wrong, even two of us were stretched to the limit. Twelve hours a day in the gym, 5-6 classes per day, five days per week, for 16 weeks, with serious weight riding on the outcome. The personal cost was high but I said I would do it so I did. And when we finished I quit the movie business altogether. Regardless of the success of "300", its influence on future movie aesthetics, and the financial and social opportunities that might come along with it, I walked. I loved Zack. I liked and respected the team he built around him, but the rest of the industry shit outweighed those good, personal experiences.

The work I was doing with the military felt more legitimate. Zack was bummed-out when I walked away but I believe he understood that I wasn't ready or willing — or able — to deal with Hollywood's teeth. I made distance and did my own thing.

Five years later Zack called and cast bait my ego could not ignore, "I have a job that no one but you can do ..." I took the call and I took the meeting. And then I made the commitment, which I would keep for the next five years.

"Zack, I will do whatever is required, whatever you need, whatever the job demands."

And that means something to me. It means I will hold the rope if you fall, and burn my hands, stripping flesh to the bone to save you. It means I will put myself between you and the falling rock. I will give you the last meal I was saving for myself. It means that I will never let you down.

And that meant Hollywood could easily take my life.

Oh, you thought it would be easy? Go fuck a stick.

I spent the next eleven months fully committed. Yes, to helping Henry Cavill transform himself into the character of Superman, and Antje Traue to become Faora, and Michael Shannon to portray Zod, but ultimately, it was my work with Russell Crowe that changed my life, and his, the details of which I will address in the future. These aren't casual training and dieting gigs. If you know — and I can name on one hand everyone who does — then you know, and you understand the investment, and the cost.

Man of Steel quickly led to 300: Rise of an Empire, then Man From UNCLE, Batman vs Superman, Wonder Woman and Justice League. I did good work because I was committed to Zack and his vision. And because he trusted me, and supported me. When I said that I would deliver X actor in Y condition on Z date, he — and Debbie, his wife and producer — counted on me to do so, they believed in me, and gave me whatever support and autonomy I asked for in service of that trust. I hope I never let them down because, god, I gave everything. Literally.

Sometimes I ask myself what made Zack different? Hell, what makes anything or anyone that doesn’t conform to a stereotype or consensual norm different? And why would I devote myself to making good on my promise?

Some might say commitment, that Zack goes all in, and maybe that’s it, but others do the same in their own field, their own way.

For me it was soul, his soul and how he gave it utterly to whatever he was doing at the time, be it throwing a football, diving for a shuttlecock, teaching his daughter, his son, or directing a cast and crew of hundreds on a collective journey to tell a story, to share the spirit he read in that tale and then reimagined in his own unique way.

It was the loyalty he demonstrated toward his friends and coworkers — his family — and the loyalty he was shown without demanding or commanding it, that he earned through love, and action, which came to him as naturally as breathing does to the rest of us.

It was attention to detail, those he could see and touch, and those he imagined, and imagined he could imagine. Some of these were “simply” technical, others were elements he believed could tell the story better, or support it, details that had to exist for those who sought the origins and outer edges of a story, a world, a relationship, a universe. Details to inform, and to ignite other imaginations, and imaginers.

He didn’t ask or expect anyone to give their all we simply did, because he did. Every hour of every day. And I gave until I no longer could.

Just like my climbing career, in a decisive moment, when the universe "suggested" I do so, I quit. Definitively. When I pulled that pin I was on a job directed by someone I didn't respect, someone I wasn't willing to hold the rope for. Even though the actor was a dear, dear friend and someone with whom I had a lot of history, I couldn't guide him because I was doing shit that made me sick: I was working solely for the paycheck. And I wasn't fulfilling my commitment to Zack; I was sucking Hollywood's dick and I didn't like the taste.

But I hadn't yet swallowed the lure, I swished it around in my mouth and ultimately realized that the shit they promised — to keep me in their system, well-paid of course, but under their thumb — would land me in a boat, enslaved. So I spit out the hook and walked away, again. I needed to be me, to preserve me, all I had done to become me, and what those years might help me to become in the future.

I did the work for a man, I applied and remade myself for an ideal, for a relationship, and I utterly rejected whatever notoriety that would come of it. I simply did not and do not care for the pay, for the accolades, for the interviews in the fitness and entertainment magazines. Fuck all of that. And I laugh at all of the hopefuls stroking the cocks and shouting the lies. It's a machine, and it's easy to become a cog in it, eventually patting yourself on the back for shit you didn't even do.

This is useless, it is a vacuum, a sucking hole whose only value is in the relationships it allows to develop. I took advantage of that. I felt and I loved and the emotion allowed me to do good work, work that folks won't ever forget. All of it started with a friendship, and thankfully, we came through it intact.

Thank you, Zack, for remaining steadfast throughout.

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Vanity Fair article

Zack Snyder timeline video