“Kody, if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I like whores.”

That declaration was made within the first two minutes of being hired by Tom Sizemore, not the worst boss I ever had, but damned near the most memorable.

I was working on a Larry Kasdan movie called DREAMCATCHER. I was going through the deepest depression of my life. I was not enjoying my work, my life, anything. Everything was heading to a conclusion. That’s when I was offered the job of being Tom’s personal assistant. I had people on the crew tell me to dodge it like the clap. But, really, how bad could it be?

I knew Tom at this point as a highly talented actor. NATURAL BORN KILLERS. TRUE ROMANCE. STRANGE DAYS. DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS. WYATT EARP. HEAT is arguably the best Michael Mann film EVER made.

Day One was a test to see if I could stay. Day Two was worse. But depression, apathy and a slow-boiled rage can create a side of you where you don’t care what happens. Let the chips fall where they may. And by Day Four, I understood and applied the best method to cut through Tom’s bullshit; you look the attacking bear in the eye. You stand your ground. You call him on his bullshit. Whatever was rolling around inside me at that time was a similar animal that plagued him.

Tom was a contradiction — a narcissistic mess, a drug and sex addict, triggered to rage, prone to flights of his own id. Working for him was a deep dive into the bizarre. Buy me a milkshake someday, and I will recount to you the many ways it was. My short film, The Familiar, is a direct adaptation of that experience.

But he was also extremely generous. He was genuinely funny (if not goofy) and complimentary. He taught me how an actor prepares, how he rehearses, how he finds his character. He taught me that whatever happens outside the set is up for grabs, but as soon as you’re needed on your mark, you show up with no excuses. Most of my time with him was bull sessions that ranged from films we loved to personal philosophies to past regrets.

He read my scripts and was honest in their appraisal. I pitched a film to him, and he signed a letter of intent, a golden ticket for any fledgling filmmaker. The momentum was destroyed in the coming weeks when he returned to Los Angeles. He destroyed his bankability by becoming person non grata with an ever-consuming drug addiction and incidents of domestic abuse (his fiancé at the time, Heidi Fleiss, left me voicemails that would oscillate between absolute warmth to acidic venom).

And that was the thing about Tom. He was a bat out of Hell with no sense of how to slow down, adjust the barometer, stick to a landing. In 2003, when he went through Level One of his problems, he always believed he would be forgiven by the public and find his way back to Mount Olympus. Hollywood loves a good redemption story above anything else. But Tom wasn’t, and never could be, a Robert Downey Jr.

When I worked for him, every day he’d put a rubber band around his wrist. I asked him what that was about. He said it comforted him. I joked with him that it was a cheap-ass talisman — a magic item to ward off demons, bad-line readings, and unpaid pimps. He put on that bizarre, shit-eating grin and, with his gravelly voice, told me to go on an errand. “I’m gonna need the biggest bag of elastic bands you can find.” We laughed, but even then, I realized there would never be enough rubber bands in the world to repel Tom’s demons.