A Very Brief and Utterly Pleasant Oscars Audience With Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy sat in the center of the otherwise empty Academy Awards theater, a white head like a single clover amid the rows of seats. It was 2008, and the author of Blood Meridian, Suttree, and The Road was making a vanishingly rare public appearance at the ceremony, where the film adaptation of his novel No Country for Old Men was poised to dominate. Famous for his reclusive tendencies, the author did not do interviews nor did he appear on The Tonight Show. He never walked red carpets, toured colleges on the lecture circuit, or did any of the public events that come with being one of the nation’s great writers.

He wrote elegant tragedies that at times became biblical in their sweep and intensity. Then he remained utterly quiet about them. (With few exceptions—he did a New York Times interview in 1992, a profile for this magazine in 2005, and a sit-down with Oprah Winfrey in 2007.)

I first glimpsed him in the lobby before the ceremony in February 2008, just a face in the crowd gathered before the show in the three-story lobby of the (then named) Kodak Theatre, where Champagne flutes were being clinked by the beautiful and powerful in anticipation of Hollywood’s biggest night. At first, I wasn’t sure it was really him. A woman’s voice on the sound system announced that there were 45 minutes before the start of the telecast. Soon after that, I lost sight of him.

My job was to cover the goings-on backstage, to capture behind-the-scenes stories that no one sees in the theater or on television. After pacing in the wings, briefly interviewing host Jon Stewart, and making sure I didn’t miss Jack Nicholson’s annual pass-through (the previous year he showed up with a shaved head), I ducked into the main hall of the theater. I was one of the few reporters with a pass that opened pretty much all doors. At this point, everyone worth seeing was still in the lobby. The theater remained empty. A few dozen seat-fillers lined up along one aisle, getting instructions for the night from a production assistant, and some of the crew workers were checking the camera rigs near the foot of the stage.

McCarthy first appeared to be sitting by himself, but as I drew closer I saw he had a companion: his young son, John, (the inspiration, incidentally, for the survivalist father protecting his child in The Road). They had been seated about four rows from the front. One crew worker walked by and shook McCarthy’s hand, and the author seemed genuinely pleased to chat. Part of me thought I should leave him be. The New York Times, in its interview 15 years before this night, described him as a “gregarious recluse” who “has lots of friends who know that he likes to be left alone.”

On the other hand, when you are at these events as a reporter, you are constantly aware of your status as an outsider. In the glittering swirl of a setting such as the Academy Awards, you can’t help but have a little pang of squirming desperation. It’s easy to feel lonely in these crowds. McCarthy’s charming reaction to the crew worker who recognized him suggested to me that he was not shy or hostile. I didn’t think he needed company from the likes of me, but he was a human being—and one I admire—so I decided to just put away the notebook and take a chance on saying hello.

I approached and said that I was a reporter, but not one who wanted to interview him. He smiled, stood up, and shook my hand. “What’s your name?” he asked, and I told him. “Bresnahan?” he asked. “Is that Irish?”

“No, it’s Slovak,” I told him.

“Breznican,” he repeated. “How is that spelled?”

Momentarily unable to remember the order of the letters in my own name, I looked at my credential. He said, “Isn’t it interesting how it could sound so much like the Irish name Bresnahan and yet be from somewhere so far away?” I agreed that was a curious coincidence.

“Is this your son?” I asked, leaning over to wave at the little boy. He reminded me of the kid from There Will Be Blood, another major contender that night. He had a round head with neatly combed hair and wise little eyes. He was around 10 then. Today he is 25.

“This is John…John, this is Anthony,” McCarthy said, and I shook the child’s hand. A smile spread across his face, but he didn’t say much. McCarthy asked me which newspaper I was writing for, and I told him USA Today, gesturing back to the stage where I would spend most of the night, describing my duties in brief.

I told him that I just wanted to shake his hand, to thank him for all the remarkable work and wish the both of them an enjoyable evening. He said, “It should be fun. It should be trippy,” and we both laughed.