Which brings us to a hotel in the West Village, a corner booth, him fingering his aviators on the table in front of us, where he is willing to tell me a lot about his movie, where he is willing to share the same set of facts about its making that he's shared with
many,
many,
many other reporters, but he is not willing to go much further. He doesn't like my questions about the particular inspiration for certain details in the movie. He doesn't like questions about his personal life and how it might relate to the big, sexy music movie I'd just seen.
These were typical interview questions. I wanted to talk about Mr. Cooper's own sobriety, and how it was reflected in Jackson's drug and alcohol addiction. I wanted to talk about fatherhood — how Mr. Cooper has both lost his father and become a father in the last few years — since fathers haunt the movie. I wanted to talk about love. But he wasn't having it.
Listen, he said to me. I seem nice. He gets that I'm just doing my job. But he's not going to get personal with me. He has to promote his movie — he wants to promote his movie — but beyond that? What would telling me anything truly personal really do? "I don't necessarily see the upside of it. You know? I don't."