“Bozo is my hero,” actor David Arquette, 50, said on a frigid Sunday morning as he painted a frisbee-sized red circle on the brick wall of a warehouse in Bushwick, one of Brooklyn’s neighborhoods. “We are trying to free the clown.”
Dressed in a slightly clowny way, in a Bozo-style trucker’s cap, Mickey Mouse-print Vans sneakers, white jeans and tiger-print wrestling socks, Arquette, who used to head a group of art taggers in Los Angeles , was completing a 1.80 meter high painting of the Bozo clown.
These days, Bozo is not only Arquette’s inspiration, but his business. This year, Arquette, the youngest member of the Arquette clan of actors, acquired the rights to a character once defined as “the most famous clown in the world” from the executors of Larry Harmon’s estate, who popularized the character.
“First we have to help rehabilitate the clown’s image,” said Arquette, stepping back to contemplate the painting and expressing approval with a smile. “I want to help bring back the nice clowns, and change the speech. You know, help people understand that silly humor is cool.”
In his opinion, clowns have been attacked for no reason. “There is a lot of negative history,” said Arquette. “First ‘Poltergeist – The Phenomenon’. Then Stephen King and ‘It – The Thing’. That created a real problem. And then the Joker, and the clown Krusty.” “The clowns,” he added, “are a reflection of society. And right now, we’re in an age of scary clowns.”
He would love to get Bozo back on TV. Several children’s shows starring the red-haired clown have been running for decades. For a moment, he almost managed to get Bozo live at Empire Circus, a new interactive circus adventure that was supposed to open at Empire Stores in Brooklyn this month, before problems in supply chains resulted in a postponement of the project.
In a sense, Arquette sees himself as test case #1 for the good clown’s return. “All my humor comes from me always being the butt of jokes,” he said. “All my faults, my faults.”
In the 1990s, he found himself part of the celebrity circus, thanks to prominent roles such as Dewey Riley, the charming but awkward cop from the horror film series “Scream,” and his off-screen role as the charming but awkward husband of Courteney Cox, her co-star in “Scream.” Ragged, clumsy, and a guy any guy would be able to empathize with, Arquette was the perfect anti-Hollywood mascot for Generation X.
Or perhaps Generation X played too strong a role in your life. Always willing to feast on the disregard of a Seattle rocker, Arquette struggled with alcohol abuse, made headlines with his binge drinking and watched his divorce grace the pages of tabloid newspapers, before pursuing a second career in wrestling, a decision that it may have destroyed your opportunities in both professions.
But now he’s back – maybe. This January, Arquette will reprise the character of Dewey Riley in the 25th-anniversary revamped version of “Scream,” which also features Cox (they’re divorced) and Neve Campbell, another original cast member, who face a new killer looking like ghost created to terrify Generation Z.
Remarried, sober and living a quiet life in Nashville, Tenn., he said he hopes to resume a film career that has basically decayed to chops and voice work. And this time, said the actor, he is emotionally equipped to handle the situation.
As the younger brother in a family of five actors (which includes Rosanna Arquette from “Desperately Wanted Susan” and Patricia Arquette from “Amor à Queima-Roupa”), in fact the fourth generation of the family to choose this profession, he felt ambivalent about acting. “I always thought that, well, my sisters work with this, my dad works with this. I don’t know if I have talent,” Arquette said.
One path that seemed simple was to play the weirdo. Arquette eventually gained fame as a weirdo among weirdos in the “Scream” movies, which were actually practically parodies of the terrifying killer movies of the 1980s. Looking back, he says he wasn’t prepared for the Hollywood glare.
“I’m socially awkward,” Arquette said, “and that’s why I used to dress pretty and expect people to talk to me, talk about me, pay attention. scandalous, different. They were ways to deal with my limitations.”
His decision to become a professional wrestler was the most absurd of his career. But it wasn’t insincere. Arquette has always been a fan of this type of show, and was finally able to fulfill his dream of working with it after playing a role in “Ready to Rumble”, a 2000s wrestling comedy.
“The opportunity to see behind the scenes and learn some business secrets was a real joy for me,” he said. But wrestling fans were angry when World Championship Wrestling awarded him his 2000 heavyweight title. His Hollywood agents were also angry.
Roles as an actor began to dwindle, and he struggled with anxiety and addiction, as he recounts in “You Cannot Kill David Arquette,” a 2020 documentary about his wrestling career .
The rock bottom came when a fighter named Nick Gage accidentally injured Arquette with a broken fluorescent light in a 2018 match, causing Arquette’s blood to spurt and his friend Luke Perry, who was watching the fight, to ask questions if he was dying.
Since then, Arquette’s life has settled down a bit. He now lives with his new wife, Christina McLarty Arquette, film producer and former correspondent for “Entertainment Tonight,” and their two children, Charlie, 7, and Gus, 4.
After completing Bozo’s painting (performed with the building’s owner’s permission), Arquette strolled through the graffiti-strewn neighborhood, stopping occasionally to admire the street art.
“I don’t see anyone,” said Arquette. “I don’t go out anymore”. He stopped beside a lamppost on which he stuck a promotional sticker for the new “Scream”. “If you’ve stopped drinking and aren’t chasing women anymore, there’s not much you can do.”
Working on the new version of “Scream” led him to play opposite his ex-wife. “Well, we have a daughter together and that’s why we see each other a lot,” Arquette said, mentioning Coco, 17, his daughter and Cox. “But when you work with someone and you have a history with them, there’s something automatic, natural -It’s not even acting anymore. You’re just experiencing emotions and life.”
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I am currently a news writer for News Bulletin247 where I mostly cover sports news. I have always been interested in writing and it is something I am very passionate about. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and friends.
